


West of Westeros

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Fix-It, Minor Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Maleficent, Missing Year (Once Upon a Time), Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Season 8 does not exist, The Long Night
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22014577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: What lies west of Westeros is a magical land called Misthaven where dragons take human form and a dangerous warlock known as the Dark One can grant any wish in the blink of an eye. It is a place known to the locals as the Enchanted Forest, and after the dead overwhelm the North during the Long Night; Jon Snow, the Dragon Queen and all the rest have no choice but to flee to the mysterious land to ask for help.A red wolf will learn powers she didn’t know she had, the Mother of Dragons will bond with the Evil Queen and an ugly knights honor will be tested when she’s offered the chance to become beautiful (for a price). Relationships will be strained and consummated, alliances will be made and broken, but above all; the dead WILL come for them…
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Robin Hood, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 81
Kudos: 88





	1. Daenerys

**Author's Note:**

> In the OUAT timeline it takes place during the missing year except Emma and Henry went with them, CS is already a thing and Rumple is sane because the plot demands it. In the GoT timeline everything after 8X02 is AU because, ya know, S8 sucked the dick.

“Your Grace? Your Grace? Daenerys.”

The silver haired Queen blinked and turned, catching her lover’s ( _ nephews)  _ eye. 

The wooden dock rocked gently beneath them, swaying them back and fourth, back and fourth like babes in the cradle. The golden kraken on the pitch black sails came alive with every rush of wind as the ship raced towards the place that Bran told them laid far beyond the world of Westeros.

Misthavos as the Westerosi called it, Misthaven to those in neighboring countries and to the locals it was the oddly named Enchanted Forest would be their salvation, according to the young Stark boy. In all of Daenerys travels, from the Seven Kingdoms to Essos then back home again, she had never so much as heard even a shadow of a whisper of a tale of a land to the west of the The Wall and Redkeep, nor had anyone else in all their travels. But Bran promised it was there. The three eyed raven told them all; Daenerys, Jon, Lady Stark, the Kingslayer and all the rest that there was a land with more magic then even Asshai. An all powerful entity who could grant wishes, a queen who could cast powerful curses, trolls, fairies, pixies, everything a wet nurse told their charge only existed in stories were real in this supposed ‘Misthaven.’ 

It was even rumored their own Azor Ahai, a savior, broke one curse already and was destined to break more…

“They have magic,” Bran told the gathered group of survivors once they reached on the cold dreary Iron Islands after the retreat where they had nearly been over-run. “They have more magic than any of us could comprehend, we need their help to win this war.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Gendry asked the young boy. “We could have gotten their help before the dead even reached Winterfell.”

Bran just looked at the blacksmith with those cold unfeeling eyes. “They weren’t there when we didn’t need them. They’re there now that we do. That is all we need to know.”

Not another question was asked of him.

The plan seemed simple enough on the surface. Melisandre would gather every priest and priestess of R’hllor and hold the dead at the narrowest part of the neck, all of the Northern troops and Knights of the Vale would stay behind as well. Ser Brienne wrote her father and two weeks later eight hundred of the tallest knights Daenerys had ever seen with sapphire and rose colored armor arrived at the neck and Ser Davos managed to produce a handful of soldiers from the other Stormlord Houses as well. Tyrion and the Kingslayer even managed to wrestle three thousand Lannister men from away Cersei. Other smaller Southern houses sent their men after they finally recognized it wasn’t just a ‘Northern threat’ but a threat to Westeros as a whole.

They wanted Daenerys to leave her troops behind to fight like the rest of them but she refused.

“If we survive, what will I use to fight Cersei with?” she asked Jon during the meeting where they were discussing the next stage of the war. “I’ve received nothing but scorn from the North since I arrived, I won’t leave anymore of my men behind to be butchered for ungrateful Westerosi.”

“YOU want to rule Westeros,” Sansa reminded the dragon queen sharply. “YOU want to be protector of the realm. You already said you won’t give up the North, fine, you’re the Queen, Jon bent his knee to you, that is your decision to make. But how can you govern a country you won’t make sacrifices to protect? How can you be our Queen when you demand thanks on bended knee for helping the country YOU want to rule when you call us ungrateful because we recognize if you want to rule a land you need to fight for it?”

In the end Daenerys agreed to leave Rhaegal and half of what remained of her Dothraki and Unsullied but her three blood riders (Mako, Raqo and the fiercest Horselord of them all; Frodo) and her commander Greyworm would be traveling with her. 

Jon gave his Queen a sad gentle smile as he walked over to her stood alongside her. “Yara said we should be porting soon. You doing alright?” the bastard asked, thick Northern accent soft and sweet.

The violet eyed queen sighed, not turning her gaze from the blue waters they were sailing on. “My whole life all I wanted was to sail to Westeros,” she finally said after a spell without turning to face him. “I wanted to see a Dornish sunset, to sleep soundly in my families castle, to stand on the top of the Wall and gaze at the end of the earth, to fly above the famed mountains of the Vale… But now I’m sailing away from it and leaving it in a tyrants hands.”

“Only for a little while,” Jon promised, laying a rough calloused hand on her silk covered shoulder. “These people, the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest they’ll help us, and then we will take back your kingdom from Cersei.”

“How do you know they’ll help?” Daenerys finally turned to Jon, frowning at him. “What if they use this supposed all powerful magic to kill us all?”

“Bran said they would help.” 

“Bran said we NEED their help if we’re to win,” she corrected him. “Not that they would give it.”

“He wouldn’t have us sailing past the known world just to hasten our deaths,” said Jon. 

“And you trust the three eyed raven implicitly?”

“I trust my brother,” Jon told her in no uncertain terms. He cast grey Stark eyes to the deck of the ship for a moment before he lifted his head again, saddened and apologetic for his next words. “I trust everything he tells me.”

A double entendre if ever there was one.

Daenerys’ expression hardened and she took a step away from him. “I know you do,” she said sharply. “After all why would someone lie to get their brother and best friend on the throne?”

“They’d be a pretty shitty brother and best friend to get a man who doesn’t want the throne on it,” he answered sadly. “Especially since it means… you and I…”

Daenerys swallowed hard, doing her best not to show him the sadness his words caused him. She didn’t understand it. Her family had wed brother and sister for hundreds of years, she was going to be wed to Viserys before Drogo. Was aunt and nephew  _ that _ horrible that he could barely stand to touch her? 

She loved Jon, Jon loved her, nothing else should have mattered.

The dragon turned away from the white wolf, looking over the seas, hoping that both her tears and anger were hidden well enough. “I need to get off this ship,” she muttered, peering up for the large black shadow in the sky and spotting him almost at once. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to arrive on a dragon,” Jon said as she called down the black beast and he landed on the side of the boat, rocking the great ship back and forth for a moment before she climbed on his back. “They might take it as a threat.”

Daenerys looked down at the former King. “Let’s hope they do. Maybe then the ‘need to help’ will turn into ‘will help’.” Without another wasted word to the dark haired man she whispered ‘sōvēs’ to her child and with a loud screeching song he took off. 

The Queen closed her eyes as the salty sea air whipped through her long silver hair and the sounds of the earth far below fell on deaf ears. A lazy smile made its way on her pale beautiful face as she made her way past the short stretch of blue they had left to sail on and then she was flying over jade meadows and thick forests with castles dotted here and there.

Daenerys loved this feeling more than anything else. She thought she found freedom on the back of the silver mare her Sun and Stars gave her but that was nothing compared to the feeling of soaring on Drogon, unchained from all others.

Up here she wasn’t the queen of the seven kingdoms, she wasn’t mysha, she wasn’t Aerys Targaryen’s hot tempered daughter, she was Daenerys. Just Daenerys, with no problems, no threats of the dead or green eyed tyrants, no lover who felt himself shamed just by touching her, no cold blooded red haired wolf snarling insults at her, no Kingslayer walking around with his tall unfortunate looking knightley companion looking far happier and at ease then a murderer and oathbreaker had a right to…Daenerys, just Daenerys, was flying without a care in the world.

And then she was was falling.

It happened as sudden as a gust of wind. One moment she was soaring high above the land, Drogons scales rough and sharp against her skin in a pleasant familiar way, and then there was nothing but sky between her and the ground. 

She grabbed at the nothingness in the air maddingly, her scream ripping past her throat. The Queen kicked and flailed and shrieked as she plummeted through the air, tears streaming down her pale face, wondering where in the seven hells Drogon had disappeared to when suddenly; she stopped.

A queer surge of something she couldn’t place surrounded her, something electric and powerful and strong held her in place and surrounded her. Daenerys blinked, looking up at the sky as she sat suspended in the air for a moment before she began falling again, much more slower and peaceful. Daenerys twisted herself around and saw that she was covered in a dark red electric smoke and when she followed the trail of magic it led her to a woman. Two women in fact. 

The one with the beams of electric red energy surging from her palms was beautiful. Stunning; in every way, with black hair twisted into an elegant high updo and a seductive heavily painted face that did nothing to dull the beauty of her dark brown eyes, dressed in tight, obscenely tight, black and purple revealing leathers. The woman beside the witch had long thick curls, warm hazel eyes and a pleasant almost plump kindly face with hair black as ebony and skin white as snow wearing a tan suede outfit. 

It was only then that she noticed a man besides her also falling slowly and cradled by the magic looking far more panicked and out of sorts than she was. He was naked as his name day with thick long black hair and he was massive; solidly built with heavy thick muscles rippling under pale white skin marred with scars both old and new. He was tall, far taller than Daenerys, he might have even had an inch or two on the Evenstars daughter. The Queen never saw him before but those eyes... those dark brown almost black eyes looked familiar in a strange sort of way. 

She let out a heavy sigh of relief as her feet finally touched solid ground and beside her the man was placed just as gently on the soft green grass.

“Why did I fall?” the man snarled, his voice a harsh guttural growl. His eyes went wide in and his hands flew to his throat, like this was the first words he ever spoke. He looked down at his body, hands running over pale skin and thick muscles. He brought his rough calloused hands up to his face and swallowed hard as he slowly wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes.

“Are you alright?” the woman with long black hair asked the man. “Regina, what did you do?” she demanded of her companion when the man ignored her question.

“You mean apart from saving them from a messy death? Nothing,” the woman named Regina said dryly, eyeing the Westerosi queen and the stranger cautiously. “Feel free to offer your thanks anytime, by the way.”

But Daenerys didn’t offer her thanks, she was too busy staring at the man who ran his hands over his shoulders, across his stomach, through his hair, and explored the rest of his well muscled body. He swallowed hard before he slowly turned and looked over at Daenerys, mouth falling open and brown eyes wide and, oddly, full of tears. 

“Mother?” he breathed, reaching a hand out to her and then pulling back as if he’d been burned when Daenerys took a worried step back.

The Queen looked over the man, his long black hair, the young scars that littered his body that looked suspiciously like spear marks, at the long white marks that looked like claws, at those familiar dark eyes…

“Drogon?” she asked, voice hitched in fear and love and joy and terror all bursting through at once. 

The man nodded, blinking away tears. Without another moment wasted, the two of them threw their arms around each other and the blonde wept, clutching at her son, her flesh and blood son, to her as tight as her strength would allow. He smelled like sulfur and smoke and fire and everything that gave her house the words ‘fire and blood’. He was beautiful, he was hers, he was her Drogon...

“As touching as this off little...  _ reunion _ is,” Regina said, looking between the blonde and the black haired dragon. “It’s making me rather uncomfortable that a mother is hugging her naked son.” With a wave of her hand Drogon was dressed in a plain white cotton shirt and a pair of black breeches with boots.

Drogon stood back and looked down at himself, clutching at his clothes. “This feels… odd,” he muttered, looking back at a slack jawed Daenerys. Even the Warlocks at Quarth didn’t waste their powers in such insignificances as dressing yet here was this woman doing just that. 

_ What in the Seven Hells did the Stark boy get us into? _

“Exactly how long have you been in dragon form?” Regina asked amused, as if seeing dragons turn into humans were an everyday occurrence.

Drogon furrowed his brow, wiping away the last of the uncalled tears. “I’m a dragon.”

“Yes, obviously,” she said annoyed at the lack of answers they could provide. “But how long have you been an  _ actual _ dragon?”

Drogon and Daenerys exchanged another confounded look before turning back at the duo. Regina's brown eyes narrowed in anger and mistrust and then a moment later she held a large fireball in her hand. The queen stared slack jawed and dumbfounded. Daenerys saw only one fire priestess conjure fire after intense concentration and after the very lives of the north depended on Melisandre getting the trenches lit. But this woman used magic, saved them, conjured flames like it was nothing… A sly grin made its way to her pale face. If these people could help them not only would they destroy the threat of the dead but Daenerys could use them as soldiers in the war against Cersei and she would sitting on the Iron Throne in no time...

“Who are you?” Regina barked, drawing the dragons thoughts away from beautiful victorious visions and back to the present. “Did Zelena send you?”

Daenerys slowly lifted her hands. “I don’t know any Zelena, I come from Westeros.”

“Where is that?” the dark eyed woman demanded. 

“It’s west of this land. I arrived here with a group of people sailing here now.”

The shorter woman narrowed her eyes in confusion and she took a cautious step back. She reached for a bow and quiver that Daenerys didn’t realize was at her feet until now. “There’s nothing west of here… all the maps-.”

“Our maps say so too but it’s there, I swear it. You just have to listen to me.” She took another step forward and in a blink of an eye the modestly dressed woman had an arrow aimed at her chest. 

“I’ve known people from all over this realm and not ONE have mentioned your country,” the archer snapped, less furious then the fire wielder but no less demanding.

Unfortunately for the woman holding the bow, she didn’t quite realize how much a bow and arrow looked like not only the scorpion to a newly turned human-dragon. Not only a scorpion but one that had nearly killed him and his mother when they burned the men dressed in red metal but the wooden spears that plunged into him over and over in the sand pit as well when she first flew.

“PUT IT DOWN!” Drogon roared at the long haired woman, sparks flying from his tongue as he leapt in front of his mother.

The archer held her bow string tauter but fear flashed in her hazel eyes. “PUT IT DOWN OR I WILL END YOU!” her son boomed again when she made no move to listen to instructions.

“You get down on the ground or  _ I _ will end  _ you _ !” a new voice barked, this one belonging to a blonde woman wearing an odd leather half closed jerkin, storming out from the forest behind them, holding a small metal contraption out in front of her. Daenerys wasn’t sure what it was but the way the blonde was holding it she could bet it was a weapon of some sort. 

“If you hurt my son I will rain fire and blood down on all of you!” Daenerys exploded, racing out in front of Drogon, well aware her tiny slender frame couldn’t help to protect him if the archer had good aim.

“And if you touch my mother I’ll punch you and your son in the goddam mouth!” the blonde snapped. “Now get! Down!”

Daenerys looked towards the fire in Regina's hand. This had to work. It had to. The Gods wouldn’t let her come all this way past the edge of the known world to die here alone without them even knowing why they made the trip. 

Taking a deep breath and sending a quick prayer to the Gods, Daenerys sprinted towards Regina. Daenerys watched as the witch threw the ball of fire at her and then she stilled, spreading her arms and allowing the beautiful familiar seductive heat to surround her. 

She felt no pain, just a comforting beautiful heat that licked at her skin as soon as her clothes were burned away. The flames wrapped her in the comforting arms of a mother and washed over her in gasp inducing waves like a lover’s hands…

Daenerys saw the amazed look on their faces and she smiled. Bathing in fire was just as awe inducing here as it was in Westeros… 

When the last of the flames died away she stared at the three slack jawed women, her heart pounding against her ribs. Drogon dropped to his knees, bending his head and rather out of respect, fear, or just the fact that their legs were trembling too hard to support their weight the blonde and the archer fell to their knees as well. 

“We’re gonna have to get you some fireproof clothes,” she heard the blonde mutter from the ground.

“Who are you?” Regina asked again, this time with far less accusation in her voice. Unlike the other two she had remained standing.

“I am Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen,” the dragon queen announced with every bit of might as she slowly walked over to the black eyed woman. “The First of my Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, and Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms. I am the Unburnt, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.” She stopped a few inches shy from where Regina stood. “You  _ will _ listen to what I have to say.”

The two women stood toe to toe, only a few inches difference in height. Violet eyes bored into brown and brown stared back with an impressive calmness. A smug smile slowly painted Regina's beautiful cream colored skin and despite herself Daenerys felt her own smirk growing.

“Well Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen; I am Her Majesty Regina Mills, Queen of the Enchanted Forest. On behalf of my kingdom…” Regina held out her hand and Daenerys took it, both of their grips firm and (almost) challenging. “Welcome.”

The two other women stood up from the ground, still staring awestruck at the dragon queen.

“This is my step daughter the princess Snow White,” Regina said pointing to the archer. “And then the blonde is her daughter Emma Swan. It’s a long story,” Regina added, seeing the confused look as the dragons eyes flickered between the similarly aged Emma and Snow.

“The pleasure is mine,” Daenerys said with a polite bow of her head. She motioned to Drogon to rise who did as he was told, still glaring daggers at Snow. “This is my son, Drogon. He’s… adopted you could say. But please, heed me. I need your help. My country and people need your help.” The three women looked at one another for a moment before they turned back to Daenerys looking not unsure but rather cautious.

“A group of nobles from my country have traveled with me, they should be approaching the eastern dock soon,” Daenerys continued. “One of them, Bran Stark, he can explain the situation better than I can, there’s… a lot of parts.”

“The eastern dock you say?” Regina asked raising her hands.

“Yes. I-.” 

A whoosh of purple smoke, a blink of an eye, and she was back on the boat dressed in the same clothes that had burnt in the queens fire.

Daenerys whipped around towards Regina. It was her turn to stare gobsmacked at the dark eyed queen and a fear she hadn’t felt since Quarth took grasp in her. They had been able to transport from one place to another as well and that had nearly ended with Daenerys and her dragons imprisoned for eternity.

“Seven Hells,” she heard Jon gasped astonished from behind her. He was staring at the dark haired queen who had just magiced the five of them onto the ship without so much as a moments warning. The Kingslayer and Brienne were standing in the corner of the ship, both gripping their twin swords not sure if they should attack or stand down, Sansas eyes were as wide as Daenerys had ever seen them and Arya looked at the Queen in the same amazement as she did when she first saw Daenerys dragons. 

But Bran looked as cool and calm as ever, like he had expected the unexpected arrival. After a long stretch of silence he motioned for Arya to push him forward and he stopped in front of the three strangers.

“Can I help you?” Emma asked in her strange foreign accent, the same Regina and Snow shared when no one spoke for a long while.

“You will.” Bran said simply. “It is an honor to meet you, Emma Swan, the savior of worlds.” He turned to Regina. “You as well Regina of House Mills and Snow of House White.”

“Like I said,” Daenerys told the group of shocked newcomers. “There’s a lot of parts…”

Please Review!


	2. Brienne

“I don’t like this…” 

Brienne walked besides Jaime as the Westerosi trailed behind the strangers of the Enchanted Forest, doing her best not to let her fear inside be well read. “There’s too much magic in this place,” she muttered low enough for him to hear. “I don’t trust it.”

The golden haired knight nodded in agreement but said nothing. He was too busy trying to ignore the heated hateful look the dragon turned human Drogon was giving him. 

Apparently even when in human form dragons memories were impeccable and if you saw the man who tried to kill you, who tried to kill your mother, who DID kill your grandfather and was the reason for your families dynasty collapse… you tend to get a little testy.

The Queen, Regina, did what she referred to as ‘poofing’ the group to the castle in a purple puff of smoke before Brienne could voice her displeasure or pleas not to be magicked anywhere once they pulled into the dock. It was a large palace, made of black stone and dark windows, and tall metal shear looking defenses surrounding it that looked like it would cut anyone who dared to try to scale the walls to pieces. 

The inside of the castle was foreboding, dark, unfriendly and unwelcoming; a world away from the beautiful open marble Evenfall or the ancient but drab Winterfell. This place was not one for visitors and Brienne found herself wondering why this large group of people had been invited to live in it.

_ This was a mistake, _ Brienne thought as they passed by a particularly violent tapestry of an older man with graying hair and a crown slashed to pieces.  _ This was a huge mistake… _

The two knights, Podrick, Tyrion, Lady Sansa and her three siblings, the dragon queen, Davos, her followers Greyworm and Missandei, Drogon and her guard and then the two Greyjoy’s followed the dark haired sorceress and the woman she called her step daughter and the blonde in the odd open leather jerkin into a large room where two men and a teenage boy all looked over at them.

One had sandy blonde hair and was almost as tall as Jaime and fashioned himself in velvet and furs looking as much a prince as Brienne had ever seen (save for Renly. No one would ever look as regal as he did...). The other had hair black as pitch and painted sea blue eyes and dressed in black and crimson leathers and decked himself in almost as much jewelery as a maid might wear, leaving a strip of chest exposed. She noticed a metal hook where his left hand was and when she caught Jaime’s eye the two of them had to bite back a smile. 

“Why not a hook?” Brienne asked him in Kingslanding when he showed her the golden hand for the first time. “Wouldn’t that be more practical?”

“That’s what I said but apparently a hook isn’t becoming of a Lannister,” he answered with a shrug.

Finally the boy was dressed in a simple dark blue velvet jerkin and black breeches and had a large leather bound tome on the table in front of him entitled ‘Once Upon a Time’.

“Bloody hell!” the black haired man exclaimed, blue eyes wide staring at Brienne as they all filed into the room. “Is that a man or a woman?”

“Killian!” Emma chastised sharply as the tall blonde knight quickly lowered her eyes while her face blushed scarlet.

Apparently even in this strange land she was an oddity that others felt the need to mock.

“It’s a fair question,” Regina muttered loud enough for the group to hear, walking over to the table and pouring herself a glass of wine.

“Regina!” Snow scolded before she turned to a blushing Brienne who still hadn’t looked up from the ground. “I am so sorry, I-.”

“I don’t care how sorry anyone is,” Jaime cut the princess off as sharp as steel. “The next person to make a comment about the highborn lady and an anointed knight will find their head mounted on the castle's walls.”

“After they lose the other hand,” Sansa added with an icy glare towards the man Emma had called Hook.

“Okay how about we all settle down?” the prince said calmly, looking between the Westerosi and the ones who brought them here. “Hook and Regina didn’t mean any insult to her.”

Yara quarked her brow at the black haired man. “Hook? Your name’s Hook?”

“At your service,” he said with a low sweeping bow and the girl smirked.

“Would that be ‘Captain Hook’ by any chance?”

“Aye it would.” He swaggered over to her, a smug grin on his handsome face. “You’ve heard of me I take it?”

“Every Greyjoy and Reaver who ever sailed heard of you.”

“You’re a Greyjoy?” She nodded and motioned to Theon, mentioning they both were. “Any relation to Euron?”

Theon, Arya and Jaime’s face all fell and shook laughed. “Yeah that’s usually the face I get when I mention him. He might have a few screws loose but he’s the best pirate I ever sailed with.” He smirked and winked. “After me of course.”

“He’s our uncle and he murdered my father and almost murdered me and my sister,” Theon said darkly.

“What’s your point, Mate? I said he was a good pirate not a good uncle.”

“Anyway…” the prince said darkly before he turned towards the less than amused princess, “Snow, what’s going on? Did we find more people from Storybrooke?”

“They’re not from Storybrooke,” Snow answered the prince. “They’re not even from this realm, they’re from a land called Westeros.”

Those from the Enchanted Forest turned towards the younger boy but before he could answer whatever unasked question they wanted Bran spoke up.

“We won’t be in the book,” the three eyes raven said as eerily calm as ever. 

“What are you kid, some kind of mind reader?” Emma asked while the others looked on flabbergasted. Brienne saw the boy flip through the time in front of him. 

“I’m not a mind reader,” he answered. “I’m the three eyed raven.”

“Yeah that doesn’t exactly clarify things…” the prince said, sharing a concerned look with Snow.

“He’s right,” the boy said, eyes wide. “They’re not in the book at all 

“Hang on, what book?” Daenerys asked before she made her way over to the boy and tried to grab the book from him but he pulled it away from her. The three Dothraki and Greyworm all tensed up, grabbing their weapons at the perceived insult of their queen.

“I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet,” he told her with a friendly if not a bit condescending smile.

Daenerys raised a brow at him for a moment before she went back to the group, telling something to her guards in Dothraki and they all stood down but stayed eyeing the young boy.

“Book magic aside what are they doing here and what do they want?” the black haired man who insulted Brienne asked. “How do we know they aren’t spying for Zelena?”

“We aren’t spies,” Jon said as he stepped forward from the crowd. “Our land need your help.”

“Sorry, Mate, we got enough problems of our own,” Hook answered with a shrug.

“He’s being ridiculous, of course we can help!” Snow protested before she turned to the prince. “Right David?”

“Of course we can,” David said with a curt nod. Brienne saw Regina roll her eyes and her heart sunk further.

This was a bad idea. These people didn’t want to help them.

“How can we offer aid?” the prince asked, clasping Jon on the shoulder. The way he looked one might believe he might have jumped on a horse that second to go help.

“They want us to go to their land and fight ice zombies,” Emma answered for Jon rather dryly as she flopped down in the seat next to Hook. “A gigantic horde of ice zombies that even two dragons couldn’t stop.”

David looked far less enthusiastic then he did two seconds ago.

“Our land has been taken over by the dead,” Jon continued, desperation soaking every word. “Led by an ancient evil the Night King and the White Walkers.”

“Wait we get to go fight  _ ice zombies _ ?!” the young boy exclaimed, eyes wide with joy. “Awesome!”

“ _ You  _ won’t be fighting anything!” Regina said with a quirked eyebrow. “If we choose to fight you’ll be staying here.”

“Your mom’s right, Henry,” Emma said. “You’ll be staying here, and we probably won’t be going anyway.”

“You have to fight,” Jon begged looking around the room. “Please. Your magic, it’s all that can stop them.”

“Only one of us has magic,” Emma protested. “The rest of us can’t help anymore then you can.”

“That’s not technically true, Love,” Hook told the blonde. “You have your true love magic.”

“True love magic?” Daenerys asked looking between them. “What’s that?”

“Her parents share true love,” Henry announced. “It’s the most powerful magic in the world. True love made her.”

“Don’t forget the whole ‘savior’ thing,” Regina said with a roll of her brown eyes.

“What savior thing?” Arya asked, looking between Bran and Emma.

“My mom broke a curse,” Henry piped up again. The group all looked towards Regina. “My other mom, Emma. I have two moms. I’m cool like that,” he said with a proud smirk.

“Two mothers?” Sansa asked with a quirked brow. “How can someone have two mothers?”

“She’s Henry’s birth mother, I adopted him,” Regina answered rather sharply and Brienne had a feeling there was far more to the story than a simple adoption. “But Emma was the one who broke my curse.”

Snow and David were practically beaming with pride at their rather uncomfortable looking daughter. David reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “She’s the one that’s going to bring back all the happy endings.”

“See? You’re already destined to be a hero,” Daenerys said, reaching out and grabbing hold of Emma’s hands. “You are Azor Ahai, the princess who was promised.”

Emma pulled her hands away from the Queen. “Sorry, Human Torch, I’ve saved enough worlds and broke enough curses… I just want to figure out a way home with my kid and my family, that’s it. I don’t want to go to Medieval Times 2.0 and fight ice zombies.”

“Lady Swan, please,” Jon begged her.

“I said no.” 

Without another word Emma pushed by the rest of the group and stormed out of the room with Hook hurrying after her.

“I told you this was a waste of time,” Arya muttered just loud enough to hear. 

“Let us talk to her,” Snow pleaded. “It’s just… She isn’t used to this world, this land. She just wants to go home.”

“We want to go home too,” said Sansa. “But our homes been overrun with the dead, a home we fought for and waged war to take back. Our people are dying, good men and women are dying.”

“We understand,” David told them. “We do. We know what it’s like when you can’t protect your kingdom.” In the corner Regina shifted rather guiltily. “But Emma, she's-... she’s been through a lot and we’re facing our own threat with a witch… We’ll talk to her.”

“Just don’t give up,” Snow urged them. “You have to believe in the possibility of a happy ending, you have to believe in the possibility of hope. Because hope is stronger than any threat you’re facing, it’s stronger than any enemy, you just have to believe in it.”

Davos laughed. “Aye, M’lady, you’re quite the motivational speaker. I think she’s even got me beat.”

“Hope speeches, it’s kind of my thing,” Snow said with a smile. In the corner of her eye Brienne saw Regina roll her eyes but there was a hint of loving affection in her expression as well… “Now you all had a long journey I’m sure so if you wanna follow me I’ll show you to your rooms, get you some clean clothes, some warm food?”

“That would be very much appreciated,” Sansa said. “Thank you.”

After the introductions were made for the rest of the group the Westerosi followed Snow to their rooms. Brienne was put in a moderately comfortable room. A large bed, a chest at the foot, a stand and a window that gave her a view of the forest and little pomp or circumstance but that was fine, she had never been one to complain about the comforts of home. 

Podrick was two doors down from her (the boy, Henry, had his eyes nearly blown out of his sockets when she mentioned he was her squire and when he asked if she was ‘a real knight’ she had answered with a sheepish yes and he had exclaimed that as ‘awesome!’, which she wasn’t quite sure what it meant but Brienne was certain that it was something positive) and then Lady Sansa and Jaime were on a floor above her. 

While she was getting cleaned up for supper, there was a familiar knock on her door, metal on wood, the same as she had heard countless times in her cabin on the ship. Brienne opened the door and sure enough Jaime was standing there, leaning against the door frame looking as impossibly gorgeous as ever even in the rough looking clothes he had worn on the ship. 

“Ser Jaime,” she said with a curt nod of her head.

“Lady Brienne,” he replied, almost amused at the formality before he made his way into her room. The tall knight shut the door behind him as he looked around her room. “It’s smaller than mine.”

“I’m allowed some things smaller than yours.”

“You’ll find most  _ things _ are smaller than mine,” he said with a sharp grin that brought a blush to her face and his laugh to her ears. His smile softened and turned into one of sympathy rather than amusement. “Are you doing alright with all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“The magic? I know you have… less than happy memories with magic.”

Brienne's face fell as did Jaimes. Her memories flashed with visions of a shadow with Stannis’ face and dark blood bubbling out of her kings mouth as he collapsed in her arms. Magic killed Renly, magic brought the dead back to life, magic changed Bran Stark, magic brought fire breathing demons to life...

“I don’t trust it,” she finally said. “Magic has brought nothing but death and horrors and dangers to this world and now I’m told to trust it, I’m told it’ll help us, it’ll save us…”

“You don’t think it will?” 

Brienne sighed, rubbing her temples. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Lord Stark said it would, but of course it’s only through magic that he’s able to see the future.” She nodded at her fellow Ser. “What do you think?”

Jaime shrugged. “We’re knights and soldiers. Our job is to defend the weak, protect the innocent, keep our vows, fight and lead men in battle. Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die.”

“That’s... quite poetic.”

“Mmm. Arthur Dayne told me that once.”

“So you trust magic then? And Lord Stark?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know if I trust Stark but… on the way back from the Riverlands after I recaptured the castle there was a weirwood stump away from the camp. I only meant to rest my eyes for a moment but I fell asleep.” 

“So what happened?” 

Jaime bit his lip as he looked over at her, emeralds meeting sapphires. “I dreamed of you.”

Brienne blinked once. Twice. Three times. “You… you dreamed of me?” she breathed.

“I saw Cersei burning the sept, I saw us fighting the dead together,” he admitted. “I saw you in the dragon pit encouraging me to fight, I saw you defending me in Winterfell, I saw you…”

She swallowed hard, watching as he turned his eyes towards the floor. “What else did you see? Ser?”

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Nothing, I just… it’s nothing.” Jaime cleared his throat and finally looked back towards her. “But that was magic that did that. So… maybe magic can be a good thing too.” 

Brienne nodded slowly, not taking her eyes from him. “I’ll trust it then. Not all of it but I’ll make an effort. For Westeros.”

“Good.”

“And for you,” she added in a nervous stammer. Jaime just swallowed hard and gave a curt nod before he turned on his heel and left, the way he had left a hundred times before leaving her alone with her screaming thoughts.

—

“Well my pet...” Zelena purred to the golden skinned man standing beside her as she peered into the large crystal ball, smirking at the beautiful dragon queen, the stoic wolves, a brooding dark haired former king... “I think I know how to get what I need.”

“Oh trust me, Dearie, what you need no magic can give you,” Rumple all but growled at her, brimming with hate. 

“Perhaps,” she mused, tapping the wavy dagger against her thigh, letting him know full well she could stop his comments at any time as she waved her hand over the globe, each new face appearing one by one. “But what I want is Regina’s unhappiness and one of these strangers are the key.” The green skinned woman stopped as the smokey visions landed on a tall ugly knight, pale and plain, looking love struck at a closed door where a handsome green eyed man just walked out of her room. Zelena grinned a wickedly sinful grin, letting the image of the blonde woman swirl in the crystal ball. “And I think I just found the one whose going to unlock everything I need…”

Please Review! 


	3. Emma

“They freak me out.”

“They need our help.”

“They knew our names, Mom.”

“Henry knew our real names.”

Emma rolled her eyes, ignoring the disapproving looks of her mother and father and instead choosing to watch as Ruby and Granny brought out large platters of herbed spare ribs, salads of pine nuts, apples and greens, roasted carrots and sweet cakes for dessert. 

“We are heroes, Emma,” Snow reminded her. She placed a hand on her stomach. “How would your brother feel if he learned we let those people suffer? They need hope, they need  _ help. _ ”

This time it was her turn to remind Snow of something. “They want us to go fight ice zombies that two dragons and how many armies couldn’t stop. I’m sure the baby will understand why we told them no.”

“We have enough stuff to deal with regarding Zelena,” Regina piped up. “We take care of our own first.”

“I hate to say it but Regina's right,” said Emma, ignoring the eye roll of the dark haired Queen. “Plus we’re still looking for a way to get back to Storybrooke, that should be our first priority, not helping strangers.”

“But why do we need to go back to Storybrooke?” Henry asked looking between his moms. “We’re here together, as a family. This is where we were meant to grow up and live, not Storybrooke.”

Her father stood up from the table and laid a gentle but calloused hand on her shoulder. “This is your home, Emma. We’re here, we’re together, we’re a family… isn’t that enough?”

“No it’s not.” She wrapped her arms around herself and avoided David’s eyes. “Dad, I’m sorry, I mean I’m glad I got to see the old country and I’m glad I’m here with you guys but school for Henry? Cars? Penicillin, vaccines, electricity, pasteurized milk? Food you don’t need to kill to eat?” She looked around the table at the different faces. “Don’t tell me you guys don’t miss it when you could just grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and two aspirin out of the bottle instead of drawing murky water from a well and having to eat a spoonful of walnut bark paste when you have a headache.”

There was a long bout of silence in the dining hall. Even Ruby and Granny stopped bringing the food out to look at one another. The young werewolf was the first to speak. 

“I do miss not having to wear corsets every day,” Ruby finally admitted.

“And it is easier when I can just order wholesale rather than hope the Merry Men hunted enough boars to feed all of you,” Granny said with a nod.

“And I... kinda miss watching football,” Grumpy grumbled with a guilty look towards Snow.

“But this is our  _ home _ ,” the dark haired princess said, almost painfully. “I-... I’ve dreamt so long of bringing you here, of letting you see the castles and the forests and mountains, teaching you how to ride horses, teaching you how to be a princess…”

“I know but Mom.” Before Emma could finish the large double doors opened and several of the Westeros strangers all filed into the large dining area that Snow and David did their best to fussy up, not that a castle needed much gussying up in Emma’s opinion but they wouldn’t hear it.

Emma and Snow shared a look that said they would talk later before her mother, everstill the princess of her youth, stood up and beamed at the solemn looking strangers, opening her arms wide with David standing faithfully at her side. The small skinny one, Arya, pushed her stone faced brother to the spot they had left without a chair.

“Hello!” she told them all in her chipper voice as they all took their seats at the table. “We figured you were hungry so we had our cooks whip up something nice.”

“All on short notice but we managed,” Granny said, letting her annoyance with the hasty plea to feed an additional 15 people be well known. “We got hams, ribs, pork loin and boar steak, serve yourself, there’s no waitresses here.”

“Thank you, My Lady,” Jon said with a courteous nod. “This all looks delicious.”

Granny scoffed. “Honey, I’m no lady.” 

“As Marco can attest to,” Regina breathed into her wine glass. 

Granny raised a brow at the Queen. “At least I don’t dress like a drag queen on bath salts.”

Emma and Hook had to choke back a laugh as Regina glared at the older woman.

“Don’t you have a tennis ball to go fetch?” the queen snapped.

Granny just smirked, clapped her granddaughter on the shoulder and the two of them disappeared back into the kitchen.

Snow cleared her throat and clapped her hands together, getting the attention of the group back on her. “We have plenty to eat, so please help yourselves.” She looked around at the faces of the table. “Where’s the Queen? Danita? Isn’t she hungry?”

“Daenerys,” Jon corrected the princess politely as he forked one of the boar steaks. “And she’ll be down shortly.”

Snow gave him a friendly nod before she speared a piece of chicken and handed it to the small skinny girl, Arya, Emma recalled. 

“Oh sweetie, you’re practically skin and bones,” Snow gasped as she witnessed Arya only take a small little handful of food and begin to eat. The princess started to pile the young girls plate high with ribs and chicken and carrots. “You need more than that.”

Arya seemed almost confused for a moment before she just cleared her throat and offered a, ‘thank you,’ before she reached for a jug of ale in the center of the table.

“So instead of this,” David laughed a nervous laugh, grabbing it and putting it just out of her reach. “We have some delicious juice, if you wanted to try that instead?”

Arya furrowed her brow. “Why would I need to try that when you have ale?”

“How old are you?” the prince asked.

“Sixteen.”

“That’s why,” Snow said, pouring her a cup full of juice made from a rather queer fruit that grew near the castle. Arya caught an amused Jon’s eyes across from the table and Emma saw both of them had to hold back a snicker but, nevertheless, Arya drank it without complaint.

Just as Hook scooped a spoonful of carrots onto her plate the doors opened again and in walked the Dragon Queen flanked by the  _ very _ oddly named Greyworm, Missandei and Drogon. Daenerys dressed herself a black gown covered in crimson metal dragons scales and her pale silver hair had been pulled back into a thick elaborate braid that Emma would have rather killed herself then sit through.

“Always one to make an entrance,” Sansa muttered into her wine glass barely loud enough for anyone to hear. Jon stood up when the queen entered the room and the rest of the Westerosi followed, some, Emma noticed looking over at a slow moving Sansa, less enthusiastic than others.

Following their guests Emma, Henry and the rest all rose as well, all except for Regina who stayed seated and looked over at an amused Daenerys, smirking as she sipped on her wine. Hook leaned in close, “they’re gonna have a lot of fun trying to break each other,” he whispered to the blonde.

Daenerys sat down and the three others all took seats beside her. “This looks amazing,” the Queen said as she looked at the spread laid out before her as she poured herself a cup of wine. “If it tastes half as good as it looks then I may have to steal your cook away from you, Your Grace.”

“You should have been here when it was fully warm,” Sansa said, taking a pointed bite of a ham. “It was truly amazing then. Ow!” she hissed at an unamused Jon after what sounded suspiciously like a kick under the table.

Daenerys glared at the red head. “Forgive me, Lady Stark, my son never used a knife or fork before. Rather than allow him to embarrass himself I was teaching him.” She gave the black haired man sitting beside her an affectionate smile. Drogon was too busy glaring hatful daggers at the one handed knight sitting across from him to notice. “Thankfully dragons are fast learners.”

A faint blush painted Sansas cheeks. She muttered a quick apology before she went back to dinner. Snow cleared her throat and clapped her hands together. “Well since we’re all here,” she said in her most chipper voice, doing her best to alleviate the awkwardness. “Why don’t you tell us about your land, and we’ll tell you about ours?”

“Yeah like how’d you become a knight?” Henry piped up quickly looking at Brienne with wide eager eyes. The tall blonde blushed and quickly cast her eyes to the plate in front of her.  _ She’s a shy one… _ “I- Um- the- the eve of battle, actually, against the dead.”

“Did you get down on one knee in front of a king?”

“No- no it…” Her face went even more flushed. “Ser Jaime, he’s the one who knighted me.”

“She is the first person I ever knighted,” Jaime said looking over at a still blushing Brienne. The green eyed man gave her a look as soft as Emma ever saw on a man and when Briennes astonishingly blue eyes, Emma had never seen eyes so incredibly deep or blue before, flickered over to Jaime and he gave her a soft smile she knew was only meant for the tall knight, she blushed crimson and quickly looked away. 

_ There’s definitely something there… _

“And the first woman knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” Jaime continued without taking his eyes off of Brienne.

“Wait you’re not only a knight you’re the very first girl knight?” Henry asked, hazel eyes wide and bright. “Awesome!”

Brienne gave the boy a shy little smile and took a drink of the lemon flavored water in front of her. 

“Could you teach me to swordfight?” he asked her. 

“Henry, I was gonna teach you to swordfight,” David reminded him. 

The brown haired boy shrugged. “You’re not a knight.”

“I’m a prince though.”

“No offense, Grandpa, but princes aren’t nearly as cool as knights.”

The corner of Brienne’s plump lips flickered upwards before she nodded. “Of course I could teach you. Podrick, would you mind if he joined in on our lessons?”

“Of course not,” the squire said with a friendly smile to the excited young boy. 

Beaming, Henry turned back to his meal. Emma couldn’t help the smile when he saw the excitement on her son's face. He would learn how to sword fight from a real life knight, he would learn how to be a hero from a real life hero, one not in his book. Maybe the Westerosi weren’t so bad afterall.

Jaime reached for the jug of wine but before he could grab it Drogon reached out and snatched it out of his reach, keeping his icy glare on him the whole time he poured. The knight quirked his head to the side, gifting him a grin so sharp it could have cut steel.

“Do we have a problem?”

“You tried to kill my mother,  _ Kingslayer _ ,” Drogon spat as if the word was a curse. “That’s my problem.”

“Actually I was trying to kill both of you,” he said, taking a sip of his wine and looking over the glass at him 

Drogon gripped the base of his cup so hard Emma heard the glass begin to crack. “Lions try to murder dragons,” he turned his hateful glare to Sansa and Jon. “Traitors show no respect… The world is turning to madness.”

“Drogon, hush,” Daenerys said but the grateful smile she wore contradicted her sharp tone.

“We all respect her, Drogon,” Jon told the fire beast made flesh. “I swear it.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sansa said, looking at the increasingly agitated dragon. 

“If I could still breathe fire…” Drogon grumbled, stabbing at the boar steak on his plate.

“You’d do what, exactly?” Sansa asked coolly. Beside her, Arya smirked. 

“You know what I would do, Stark, to you and all the other wolves here,” he snapped, 

Snow looked between Jon and Sansa. “Wait you guys are wolves too?”

“We are,” Sansa said, pulling herself up to her highest height. She looked cool and calm, beautiful and regal… Even more regal than the silver haired Queen if Emma was being honest with herself. “The direwolves of Winterfell, kings and queens of the North.”

“But no longer,” Daenerys snapped with a glare towards the red head. “The last King in the North bent the knee to Aegon Targaryen 300 years ago.”

“The last King in the North bowed to  _ you, _ ” Sansa said, still stoic and calm. “The king before him was murdered by the Frays.”

“Did Robb Stark win his rebellion before his death then, or do the history books have it wrong?”

“You ever speak a word about my brothers death again and it’ll be the last word you ever speak,” Arya told Daenerys, just as calm as her sister had been.

Drogon and Greyworm both stood up in a fury, the former clenching his fist the latter the hilt of a dagger. Yara makes chair was thrown back as she stood, eyes furious at the young girl who looked amused at the drama she had caused.

Jon stood as well, arms outstretched while he tried his best to keep the peace. Brienne, grasping the hilt of a sword with golden lions, put herself in front of Arya while Podrick and Jaime immediately placed themselves to the left and right of the tall knight.

“Hey how about Granny brings out dessert now?” Snow asked desperately, looking to an amused Regina for help. But the dark haired queen just shook her head.

“This is getting too interesting to stop now,” Regina purred with a smirk.

“I’ll stop it then,” Emma snapped as she stood up from her chair. “I don’t know what drama you have going on back home or why werewolves are feuding with dragons and right now I don’t care. You guys aren’t going to start a brawl over dinner. It ends,” she said sharply, looking from one side of the table to the other. “Now.”

“She threatened my Queen!” Greyworm said in his strong accent. 

“And my mother!”

“So what?” She nodded to the still amused brown eyed woman. “Regina actually tried to kill my parents. Several times in fact, and insulted her more times than I can count, you don’t see me trying to stab her over dinner.”

“I mean there was that one time,” Regina mused.

“Anyway...” Emma said with an unamused look towards the Queen before turning back to the strangers. “Just sit down and relax. Or you guys can walk back to your ship and set sail and we won’t even consider just discussing helping you.”

A thick tension filled the air and for half a moment it looked like neither side would relent but eventually both sides, slowly, sat down in their respected seats.

The rest of the dinner was tense, awkwardly and obnoxiously so, but they thankfully got through it without anymore arguments (or hardly a word from any of the strangers.) Afterwards they all made their way up their beds, Brienne told Henry to be at the training yard at 6:30 the next morning and he enthusiastically promised he would be. 

Later on that night, as Emma laid wrapped in Hooks arm and his flesh hand stroked her mussed blonde hair she asked him, “do you think I’m in the right?”

“About what, Swan?”

“Wanting to go home. Wanting to leave them to their fate. I mean… it sounds like there’s a LOT more issues than just ice zombies.”

Hook never stopped the gentle strokes of her hair. “From what I learned of Westeros during my travels it’s a very violent country, very cruel, very harsh… The man I sailed with for a time, Euron Greyjoy, he would have terrified Regina at the peak of her Evil Queen reign.”

“That doesn’t mean they all deserve to turn into ice zombies though,” Emma argued. “I mean Missandei seems nice, Jon seems decent, Brienne-.”

“-definitely wants to fuck the golden handed knight no matter how much she tries to hide it and vice versa,” Hook added.

“Oh obviously. But my point is, is… maybe I’m being selfish wanting to go back to Storybrooke and let what happens happen.”

“You have an obligation to keep your boy safe. That’s all,” Hook reminded her. “That’s the only one you need to keep alive and protected, just like you and the lad are the only ones I care about saving.”

Emma cuddled closer to her pirate. “They said I’m the savior of their land too, that I’m ‘Azor Ahai, the princess who was promised… I don’t want to be part of another prophecy,” she admitted. “I just want Henry and my parents and you safe.”

“Don’t worry about me, Love.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve battled demons more fearsome than you could ever imagine, I can handle your mothers disapproving glares if I tell her I support you or ice zombies if you decide to fight. You just do what YOU want to do, what YOU feel will keep you and Henry safe.”

Tears welled up in Emma’s eyes for a moment. “No ones ever given me that option before. Telling me that I’m a hero, I have to fight for good, I have to be the hero, I have to ride in on the white horse and save the day… Not even my parents told me I get to choose.”

“Well I’m telling you now, Swan. You make the choice you feel is best for your family. Not for a country you’ve never heard of, not because fate decides to stick you with another title…” He lifted her head up and kissed her as soft as a song. “It’s your choice, Love,” he whispered as he kissed her again and again and again. “No one else’s.”

Emma knew he was right. She had to choose what was best for her and Henry and Hook and her parents… and she knew what the easy choice would be as well. 

But, she realized sadly. Sometimes the easiest choices weren’t always the right one…

Please Review! 


	4. Daenerys

Flanked by her Bloodriders, Drogon, Missandei and Greyworm, Daenerys made her way down to the dining hall where they ate supper the previous night. 

It was still early, the sun just started its descent over the horizon. Her hand, the wolves and the krakens decided to sleep in it appeared but Daenerys and her supporters had been burdened with early morning rises since before they could remember; rather it was the Khalasar wanting to get an early start (it was dangerous to ride through the Dothraki Sea once night fell), or the former slaves being forced to rise before the sun lest they be punished for idleness.

She just hoped some of the people in this land were early risers as well so she wouldn’t look like a fool sitting in an empty dining hall alone waiting to break their fasts.

As it turned out, thankfully, a few were. Regina, looking as enticing and provocative as ever in tight black sleek leathers that dipped low in the front, sat at the head of the table and to her right sat her son, Henry, talking and motioning with heavy enthusiasm. On the queen's left was the Kingslayer, another one who woke with the sun, a yawning Podrick, and finally the Maid of Tarth herself, another early riser Daenerys discovered during her first few days in Winterfell when she caught the tall knight practicing her swordsmanship in the courtyard even before the first rays of warmth would make their appearance. Davos, who never seemed to sleep at all, was sitting beside Henry listening with genuine earnestness, as only a father could do.

The tall knight was the first to notice Daenerys’ arrival and she quickly stood up from her seat.

“Your Grace,” Brienne greeted politely in her posh Highborn accent, granting Daenerys the customary bow of her head. Podrick and Davos followed in her footsteps without hesitation or issue and then the Kingslayer, finally and reluctantly, showed the proper respect to the Khaleesi as well.

Henry glanced at Regina who gave him a small nod and the boy stumbled to his feet, giving the silver haired woman a low bow that Daenerys returned with a friendly smile before she took her seat.

It hadn’t escaped Daenerys’ attention or amusement that Regina stayed seated.

The cook known to them only as ‘Granny’ walled out of the kitchen, with two plates piled high with bacon and eggs. Davos quickly stood up from his seat as the grey haired woman approached the table.

“Lemme help ya with that, M’lady,” the onion knight said quickly in his thick lowborn accent, taking the plate of bacon from Granny and setting it in the middle of the table. “Do ya need any more help bringing anything else out?”

Granny raised an eyebrow at the knight. “Never had anyone I was serving offer to help serve before.”

“Well in my defense I’m not quite used to being served as much as some of the others here,” Davos said with an polite inclination to those born into a much higher station then him which was everyone currently sitting at the table except for those born in Essos.

The woman scoffed and nodded towards Regina who just glared back a silent response. “Ain’t that the truth? But sure, Ruby’s out back getting water from the well so if you wanna help bring the food out I’m not gonna stop you.”

“Thank ya, M’lady.”

Rather than correct him as she had done last night when Jon used the term of respect on her, Granny accepted the compliment with an amused smirk before the two of them headed back into the kitchen.

“That’s gonna be interesting,” Daenerys heard Regina mutter before she reached for the plate of bacon and set it in front of Henry who was more interested in recalling his training with the Lady Knight then his eating.

“So you really think I might be able to squire for a real knight one day?” Henry asked Brienne excitedly. 

The blonde nodded, taking a drink from the cup of water in front of her. “If you work at it and listen to your teacher. You’re a natural at swordsmanship, Your Grace, you’ll catch on first.”

The young prince sat up as rigidly straight as possible, a look of indescribable pride on his face. He turned to look at the smiling Regina. “Hear that, Mom? I’m a natural… and a ‘Grace’.”

“Well look at who your grandparents are,” Regina said as Davos and Granny brought out plates of buttered brown bread, fruits and a large stack of a strange circular pastry that looked as if it were a small cake that had been cooked in a pan and a white pitcher of a sweet sticky brown substance. “I’d be more shocked if you were terrible at fighting, and yes you are ’Your Grace’. You’re the son of a queen.”

“Oh wow, I actually totally forgot I’m a prince… cool!” He looked back towards Brienne, “so how long do you think I’ll have to practice before I can be a knight? Oh is there some sort of fast-track thing I can get since I’m a prince?”

Daenerys fought to hold back her shock as she poured herself a glass of peach summer wine. 

Who could forget they were royalty? It had been drilled into Daenerys and Viserys’ head since before they could walk that they were the last of a dynasty, that the blood of the dragon and the blood of kings ran through their veins. Yet here this boy was; a prince, the son of a queen and yet he shrugged off the fact that he was a royal. He was more excited at the prospect of becoming a knight then he was excited at the fact he would one day rule as king.

If Brienne found the care-free attitude of the prince as odd as Daenerys did she hid it far better. “It’s not a matter of time and skill with a sword, your grace, or other titles you hold. You need to earn your knighthood, you need to embody the characteristics of a knight of you went to be one; you need to be honorable, brave, just and true...”

“If you’ll allow another opinion on this matter, M’lady,” a new voice said from the doorway with an accent similar to those who came from Westeros. Daenerys and the rest all turned towards the newcomers. 

An attractive man with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes in a handsome forest green leather tunic and a deep green colored cape flowing behind him with a full quiver on his back and a bow in hand led a group of men in rough spun clothes and one in a dark brown robe with a cross hanging around his neck to the table. A small curly haired brown eyed boy who looked to be no more than four wearing a plain brown tunic, scoffed boots and a deep green cape holding a stuffed monkey walked alongside him. One had to look no further then the dimples on his face to know he was the leaders son.

“I’ve seen knights in armor panic at the first hint of battle,” the archer continued as he made his way to Regina, grabbing her hand and placing a tender kiss to the back of it, blue eyes locked on brown the whole time. The brown haired queen raised a brow and, for some reason, examined her hand after he let it go. What she was looking for Daenerys wasn’t sure but whatever it was must have satisfied her because she turned back to her breakfast.

Judging by the handsome smirk he had gotten the reaction he wanted. 

The archer turned to face the rest of the group. “And I've seen the lowliest, unarmed squire pull a spear from his own body to defend a dying horse. Nobility and knighthood is not a birthright, nor is it something you can earn just by swinging a sword or drawing the string of a bow well, even the title of knight can be meaningless in and of itself if you don’t have the honor that should go along with a knighthood. A knighthood is defined by one's actions, and what’s more important above all else is having honor, even without the title attached to it.” He turned back to a stunned Brienne, smiled and offered her his hand. “Robin of Locksley, at your service.” 

The tall blonde’s cheeks brushed as she took hold of his hand. “Brienne of Tarth,” she answered in a shy mutter. She cleared her throat and continued, unable to make eye contact with Robin. “And that was... an incredibly brilliant insight, one that I deeply hold with and agree with as well,” she added once again speaking at Henry. “When you’re ready to become a true knight, you’ll know it in your heart.”

Robin gave a nod of agreement before he looked back at Regina and motioned to the rest of the table, including the Kingslayer who had moved his chair closer to Brienne’s the moment Robin smiled at the tall knight. “Are you going to introduce me, your majesty?”

The shock had faded by her face by then. Regina leaned back in her chair, and motioned to the table. “Everyone; this is Robin Hood. Forgive the smell of forest wafting at you, he comes from a place where they bathe in the river and use pine cones for money,” she sneered not so much malice but with a flirtatious affection that had the archer smirking at her. “Robin this is Queen Daenerys Targaryen and her subjects, they came from a realm called Westeros.”

“They need our help defeating ice zombie,” Henry popped up.

Robin narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Forgive me, Henry, but what’s an ice zombie?” he inquired, asking the same question Daenerys had since the young boy used that term to describe the white walkers.

“An incredibly evil entity who loves the cold who has created an army of tens of thousands undead mindless drones who feel no pain and who don’t need to sleep, eat, breathe, or do anything other than what the head guy says which is to wipe out their entire country,” Regina clarified. 

Robin blinked once, twice, and pursed his lips. “Well that all sounds quite... dire.”

“It is,” Daenerys agreed with a pointed look towards an impervious Regina before she looked towards Robin. “That's why we sailed here, we came to ask for your help. This land and your people have magic the greatest sorcerers in Asshai couldn’t hope to weild.”

“Not me, I’m afraid,” Robin said, taking a seat beside Brienne with his men fitting in wherever they could. “Never really trusted magic myself.”

“Even still you have a savior,” the silver haired queen reminded him. Granny and Davos made their way back out to the dining hall one last time and took their seats at the table. “There is a prophecy in our land, a prophecy about a princess who was promised, who would defeat the darkness once and for all. They will draw fourth a flaming sword and they will be Azor Ahai come again.”

“That does sound pretty close to what the Dark One predicted about Emma,” Granny argued. 

“Aye but it’s also what the Red Woman predicted about Stannis as well. A lot of good people died because of her, a lot of good people were hurt because she was wrong,” Davos added before he glanced over to Brienne who bowed her head as her eyes filled with sadness.

Regina glanced between Brienne and Davos. “I’m sorry, who’s the red woman?” 

“A fire priestess from our land,” Brienne muttered, a bitter hatred and grief in her voice that the queen had never heard before from the usually stoic woman. “She’s a murderer, she killed the king with blood magic.”

**_A_ ** _ king who had less claim to the throne than a fishmonger from Fleabottom _ , Daenerys thought to herself but hearing the emotions thick in the knights words she left that particular fact unsaid.

“You cared for your king…” Robin said softly, not a question but a statement. Brienne nodded, not looking up from the table. Robin reached over and rubbed the knights shoulder, a simple attempt to offer a friendly comfort but Brienne stiffened considerably at the gentle touch and the lion sitting beside her looked positively murderous. “I’m sorry, M’lady.”

Her cheeks burned hot with blush and she muttered something that vaguely sounded like ‘thank you’. Robin gave her another friendly smile before his hand retreated. He snatched a piece of bacon off the plate before he stood up from the table and bowed his head at Daenerys.. 

“In any case, Your Majesty, know that my Merry Men and I will help you and your land in whatever way we can.”

“Thank you, My Lord,” Daenerys said, voice dripping with gratitude as Robin reached out and took her hand, giving the back of it a quick kiss, one with far less intention behind the one he had given Regina who caught the thief’s eye and the two of them shared an amused knowing look after Robin released the dragons hand. 

Daenerys wouldn’t notice the missing ring with a blood red and onyx stone in a platinum band for a week or so, and she would go on to assume it simply fell off her finger, not realizing it had been used to buy enough food to last two poor households a moon's turn.

A tall wild haired burly man who walked in with Robin snorted as he stood up from the table as the archer picked up his son. “ _ Lord Robin _ … Sorry Rob, but that shit ain’t catching on.”

“Nor would I want it to, Little John,” Robin said with an amused laugh, clapping his lieutenant on the massive shoulder before leading the group of men headed out of the small dining hall.

The Starks, Greyjoys and Tyrion all made their way down to the table in their own time and Daenerys had to bite back telling the tall she-wolf the same comment Sansa told her the earlier night. The remaining people from Misthaven came even later and after they broke their fast Regina said she had someone Daenerys and Drogon needed to meet who might know how to change back her son back to his old form so the Queen, Missandei and Greyworm, Drogon and her bloodriders were all magicked to a large and foreboding castle surrounded by sharp dark mountains. 

“Where are we?” Missandei asked, looking up at the castle apprehensively.

“The forbidden mountain,” Regina answered.

“Well… if it’s forbidden should we really be here?”

Regina turned to the former slave, smirking at her. “No.” 

Without another word the dark haired queen walked boldly across the rickety rotting drawbridge. With no choice but to follow the small group followed. The Dothraki were muttering to each other in their language that this place was cursed, and that they shouldn’t trust a witch and Daenerys had half a mind to agree but Drogon had looked so happy when Regina said she might have a way to turn him back.

The inside of the castle was incredibly large and open with high stained glass windows. Large scorch marks painted the dark walls up to the ceiling. 

A sleek black throne sat above the floor and upon closer inspection the queen recognized the material as-.

“Dragonglass,” Missandei muttered under her breath as she too looked at the throne. Daenerys suddenly felt more nervous then she had been moments ago.

“Maleficent?” Regina called out, looking around the massive throne room. “I need your help.”

A beat and then a low voice oozing in sex and fury called back out, surrounding them on all sides. Missandei clutched Greyworm’s arm and the Dothraki surrounded Daenerys, fear written as clear as day on their features as they raised their arakhs. Drogon immediately put himself in front of his mother, snarling at the voice. “You dare come here and ask for  _ MY _ help, Regina? After what you did to me for 30 years?”

Rather than being frightened she simply rolled her eyes as if talking to an disembodied all surrounding voice was commonplace. “You would have done the same to me.”

“No I wouldn’t have,” the voice said, and then in length of half a heartbeat and with a shimmer of purple light, a woman stood before Regina, making her take a half step back. “I would have done much, much worse,” she purred.

The woman was as tall as Sansa, but her dagger heels added an extra five or six inches so she was near as tall as the Evenstars daughter. Her dress was a dark seductive tight leather melody of deep reds and blacks and purples, with a plunging neckline, long draping sleeves and an intricate stiff black collar that came up a little ways past her eyes. She wore a tight black leather headpiece that made it appear like she had two large horns growing out from her head and her hand she held a tall wooden staff, near as tall as her, with a fearsome black metal dragon perched on top of the staff wrapped a dark purple metal orb.

She was terrifying. She was beautiful, enticing, dangerous, awe-inspiring... She was everything the silver haired queen admired and wanted to be and Daenerys felt herself drawn to the woman in an inexplicable way…

Maleficent began to slowly circle the dark eyed queen, never taking her blue grey eyes off her. “So, tell me Regina…” she half growled/half purred. “Why shouldn’t I rip you apart right here in my castle?”

“Because, Maleficent…” The taller woman stopped in front of the queen, hardly any inch of space between them. “I’m your only friend.”

A hungry smirk made its way to Maleficent’s lips that Regina returned with full vigor before she reached out and tipped the brunette’s chin up with her dagger like nail. “I missed you, little one.”

“Oh I’m well aware…” 

Maleficent gnawed at her lip before she, finally noticed, Daenerys and the newcomers standing behind Regjna and any visible lust morphed into a piercing sharpness. “Who are they?” she demanded, pointing the head of the staff of the group. Daenerys had a sinking feeling that wasn’t just a walking stick. 

“Well that’s why I’m here actually. They’re from another realm,” Regina explained. “And they have a dragon traveling with them who can’t figure out how to change back.”

Drogon took a deep breath before he stepped forward, Daenerys by his side. “He changed mid-flight,” the Targaryen explained as Maleficent descended on them. “He nearly died falling out of the sky.”

“Have you ever had this problem before?” Maleficent asked, surprisingly genuine. “Not being able to change back I mean.”

“I’ve never changed into a human period. I want to be myself again so just change me back. Please,” he added as a desperate afterthought.

The tall furrowed her brow at the large black haired dragon. “How long have you been in your dragon form?”

“What in the seven hells is a ‘dragon form’?” he demanded looking from Daenerys back to Maleficent. “Why do people keep asking me that? I’m a dragon, I was  _ born _ a dragon! I’ve been a dragon my whole life!”

The purple orb in her staff began to glow and her hand trembled in rage. “Regina,” to to snarled, sharp and deadly, frightening the blond queen while confusing the brunette. “What realm did they come from?”

“A country called Westeros,” Regina explained, suddenly cautious and motioning to the Khaleesi. “This is their queen, Daenerys Targaryen. The dragon is her son.”

Maleficent rounded on Regina, grey-blue eyes wide with a damning, unquenchable fury. She grabbed the Queen by the shoulder and pushed her backward. “You brought a Targaryen into my castle?!” she roared, slamming the bewildered Regina into a wall. “You brought the daughter of thieves and rapers and murderers into my HOME?! 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Regina yelled once the shock faded, struggling under her tight grasp.

“Ask her!” Maleficent cried with such a spite-filled expression towards Daenerys that it nearly frightened her. “Ask the ‘blood of the dragon’ how the Dragon Lords of Valyria got their eggs!”

Daenerys swallowed hard. “The first Dragon Lords found the eggs in the fourteen flames in the Valyrian Peninsula, they-.”

“They  _ stole _ them!” Maleficent interrupted as sharp as steel. “They sailed here and stole the eggs from the Enchanted Forest! They came over and stole them as eggs, as children, they separated families! They took them back to Valyria and they beat them and starved them and raped them, they used dragon horns and dark magic to break them so they and their descendants stayed in dragon form until the end of eternity and would never know any better! 

Daenerys shook her head. Her ancestors weren’t slavers or rapers or anything of the sort. The first dragon lords were humble shepherds, they found their dragons as eggs, the magic in their blood was the only cause for the dragons binding themselves to them, nothing else. Everything this woman said was a vicious disgusting lie.

“You’re wrong,” Daenerys told the woman, voice hitched in emotions. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, I am the dragon's daughter and the mother of dragons! I know more about my children than any man living! The only three dragons in the world belong to me and me alone because of MY magic and MY faith in myself! You know nothing of dragons or Valyria or the Dragon Lords of old!”

For a moment no one said a word. Her Dothraki held their curved scythe-swords tight, eyeing her every breath while Greyworm did the same.

Maleficent's blood red lips curled into a deadly smile. Slowly she pulled away from Regina and made her way towards the queen, each pointed step defiant and threatening and seductive.

One of her Bloodriders ordered her to stay back and with a flippant wave of Maleficent’s hand he collapsed to the ground where he stood. Missandei screamed but the horned woman paid no attention to it.

“Stay away from her!” Drogon roared when she got close to him and his mother. Maleficent finally stopped a few inches in front of him. She reached out, resting a hand on his cheek and he yanked away from her touch, glaring at her.

“Don’t worry, my child, I won’t hurt you,” she told him with a gentle softness before turning her attention back to Daenerys and any hint of sweetness was gone. “But you… now shall you deal with me,  _ oh queen, _ ” she spat. A thick column of black smoke gathered at Maleficent's feet and quickly rose up and up, twisting round and round. “And all the powers of HELL!”

Thunder boomed, lightning flashed and when the smoke vanished there stood a dragon where Maleficent once stood.

Her back was black as pitch while her underside and wings were colored a deep rich purple and her eyes were as green as wildfire with all of its fury. She was twice the size of Drogon and she was terrible and beautiful, breathtaking and terrifying in every way. 

Maleficent reared her long long neck up and roared to the heavens, shooting a long jet of lime green fire that burned so hot it melted the stone ceiling a thousand feet above them before she launched herself into the air with a great swoop and flew around and around the room, higher and higher with far more grace and elegance than her dragons had ever flown with. Even Missandei and Greyworm and the Dothraki who had been around Daenerys’ dragons nearly all her children’s lives stared at the dragon in awe. Regina wore a proud smirk as she watched the woman fly high above them. 

It was true then. The ancient Dragon Lords, the Targaryens, they stole their dragons from this land. They took away their powers, their freedom, their choices, they forced them to do their bidding.

They made them slaves.

Maleficent landed in front of Daenerys and roared in her face so loudly it nearly deafened her. Her breath smelled of smoke and fire and ash and everything Daenerys found comforting in a sort of way.

For the first time since she stepped into the flames the night she burned her Sun and Stars, Daenerys bowed her head and bent the knee, hot tears of shame running down her face.

Drogon, Missandei, Greyworm and the standing Dothraki quickly followed suit. Maleficent made a low growl in her throat and sat back on her hindquarters. Another thick black funnel of smoke surrounded her only this time it sank down rather than up and when it cleared away Maleficent was standing there, unharmed and standing tall as she looked down at the queen.

“I didn’t know what my ancestors did.” Daenerys said with a tremble in her voice. “I didn’t, I swear it by the Old Gods and the New.”

Maleficent placed the top of the staff under Daenerys chin and lifted her head up far enough so they could meet each other's gazes. “The only God you’ll find here, Targaryen, is me.” She focused her attention towards Drogon and placed a hand on his bowed head. “You will taste freedom before I teach you how to change back, my child,” she told him. “You will taste peace and you will taste choice.”

Maleficent turned on the heel of her boot and made her way back to Regina who was gnawing at her lip while a fire burned in her brown eyes. “Poof them back to Snows castle, Little One,” Maleficent said conjuring two glasses of wine and handing one to Regina. She grabbed hold of the front of Regina's dress and yanked her closer to her, letting grey-blue eyes raked her over. “You and I have thirty years of unfinished business to attend to…”

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	5. Cersei/R'hllor’s Blessed

Flames surrounded Cersei on all sides. Blue flames that froze the blood of man rather than boiled it. 

**“** **_Queen you shall be until there comes another,”_ ** the witch’s voice called out to her from the flames in a deathly terrifying whisper. **_“Younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”_ **

The flames inched closer and closer. Cersei shook her head as she backed away from them. “My brother will kill any woman who tries to harm me.”

In the depths of the queer fire she saw Joffrey, skin purpled and brilliantly green eyes bloodshot. Myrcella, beautiful little Myrcella with her pale face covered in blood stood beside him and finally Tommen with his caved in head and crushed ribs and oddly bent spine, all of them staring at her. **_“Six-and-ten for him, and three for you,”_** Maggie whispered the same terrifying words she told her a lifetime ago. **“** ** _Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds_** **.”**

“You’re wrong!” the queen yelled definitely. She placed a hand on the soft swell of her stomach. “I beat your curse! This one will live, this one will bury me!”

 **“** **_And when your tears have drowned you,”_ ** Maggie hissed at the queen, ignoring the argument. **“** **_The valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.”_ **

Two rotting hands black and grey with rot rushed fourth from the fire and with a ear shattering scream Cersei flew up out of bed, gasping for breath that didn’t want to come. 

She leaned back against the headboard as her chambers slowly appeared before her, taking the place of the hellish fire and her dead children and the dead hands. _Just a dream_ , she told herself with a shaky breath, running her hands through her brutally short hair. _Nothing was real, it’s just a dream_.

Cersei felt a heavy thick wetness between her legs. The nightmare must have frightened her enough that she made water in her sleep. When she pulled back her covers, even in the dim light of the chambers, she saw the reality staring back at her.

Her thighs were soaked with dark red, as was her sleeping gown and the mattress and sheets. Cersei reached between her soaking wet legs with a trembling hand and when she examined her fingers and saw the blood, thick and clotted and wet, she knew the truth.

Her baby was dead. 

Her child was gone. 

The witch was right.

The world came to a standstill. Time froze for an eternity as Cersei sat there staring as the blood dripped from her fingers onto the heavily stained sheets already soaked through with the only evidence that would ever exist of the now dead prince inside her. Cersei didn’t remember screaming until her throat was red and raw, she didn’t remember clutching at Quburns robes weeping and begging him to fix it, she didn’t remember thrashing so violently that she had to be held down by two of her guards, she didn’t remember the pain of the cramps… but she did remember the blood. Thick and wet and warm slicking her thighs and staining her sheets and clothes. There was so much of it that she thought it might drown her, and she would have welcomed it at this point.

Her final chance for happiness was gone in a gush of red while she laid sleeping and there was nothing anyone could do, he wouldn’t even have a burial; blood didn’t get a crypt, afterall.

When she awoke from her haze she found herself in a soft feather bed, washed and cleaned in a new sleeping gown with a thick cotton strip women used for their moon-blood between her legs.

“Water,” Cersei begged someone, anyone, and a moment later a cup of water was at her dry and chapped lips while a gentle hand lifted her head up.

“Slowly, Your Grace,” Qyburn told her as she gulped down the water. 

After she drank her full she flopped back on the feather-down pillow, feeling like she had aged a hundred years from just the night before. 

“The fevers broke,” the old Maester said softly as he wiped at her forehead with a cool cloth, “and I’ve stopped the bleeding before you hemorrhaged. You’re going to be fine, Your Grace.”

Tears welled in her eyes as her hand cradled her stomach. How could he say she was going to be fine when her child was dead?

“I did everything right,” the Queen whispered to her only true friend in the world. “It wasn’t… I made sure I did everything right…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Your Grace, you’re not to blame for this tragedy.” Qyburn told her, brown eyes full of compassion. “These things can just happen sometimes, especially as you grow older.”

“Not to me. Not to the Queen, I gave birth to three beautiful children, three perfectly healthy pregnancies and now… now I lose one?” 

No. No, this didn’t make sense. A long dead woman had no power to kill a future king, and Cersei had done everything right, she had just seen the midwife that morning to make sure everything was okay with the babe and it had been healthy and alive and thriving she told her. 

The midwife must have been lying. She didn’t tell Cersei there was something wrong with her baby so she couldn’t get the help she needed until it was too late. She was an agent of her imp brother and that red headed cunt Sansa, they must have both helped murder her first son, Cersei didn’t care what Olenna said, (if Jaime was even telling the truth about the confession. He always did have a soft spot for that stunted freak. Who else better to blame than a dead woman?) and now they murdered another of her children.

Cersei looked at the now empty cup on the stand. The wine. Tyrion poured her wine when he went in and talked to her, that’s how he snuck her poison, a slow acting poison to be sure but a poison nonetheless that killed her child. Sansa, the little whore, must have sent that great cow of a bodyguard here to slip Tyrion the poison, it’s the only reason she would send someone else in her stead. It all made perfect sense. The three of them, Sansa, Tyrion and the Maid of Tarth, all of them hand a hand in murdering her child, the future king. 

They would pay for this. Their deaths would last for weeks.

With a fiery determination in her eyes she told Qyburn to summon Euron who, as luck would have it, had the same insight as Cersei did about the midwife and had spent the morning and the afternoon with the woman. When he showed up at her chambers his clothes were soaked through with blood that belonged to the murderous traitor. 

_He disgusts me but at least he fights my enemies rather than join them unlike my brother._

The kraken came and kneeled by Cersei’s bedside. “I will give you another prince,” he promised her, usual arrogant voice thick with emotions. He cradled her stomach. “I swear it, My Queen.”

She strained not to flinch at the unwanted touch as she put her hand over top of his.

“I was poisoned,” she told the man who thought he lost his child, running a hand through his greasy rough hair. “Tyrion, Sansa… they did this to me. Sansa gave that great big cow some Northern poison that Tyrion could use to hurt us. They killed your son, they knew one day I would carry the Krakens child and they did whatever they could to prevent that.”

“I will destroy them,” Euron growled. His stormy blue eyes filled with a violent rage that would have frightened lesser woman. “I will kill them all!”

_Pathetic idiot._

She forced a smile to her lips and laid a hand on his face. “I know you will, My King.” 

“That may be harder than we think,” Qyburn said, not even attempting to disguise his loathing for the man touching his queen. “My spies have informed me that Lord Tyrion and Lady Sansa have abandoned the North after they were overrun with the dead.” He looked over at the Queen. “Along with Ser Jaime and Ser Brienne.”

“ **_Ser_ ** Brienne?”

Qyburn nodded. “Your brother knighted the Evenstars daughter on the eve of battle. It seems they’ve been rather… inseparable since he arrived at Winterfell.”

Cersei pursed her lips at this new information. The Maid of Tarth; a great big ugly shambling thing who dressed in men’s clothes, who wore a sword with a golden lion on the hilt, who never denied loving Jaime, who convinced her twin to turn against her with a few words… Brienne stole Jaime, and now she helped murder their child. 

She had to pay.

“Where did they go?” demanded Euron. “I’ll sail all the way beyond Asshai to drag them back before the Queen if needs be.”

“Oh they won’t be heading to Essos,” Qyburn told the kraken, giving him a pointed look. “They’ll be heading west.”

“If you sail west of Westeros, you just end up in the Grey Waste,” Cersei reminded them, but neither men seemed to pay much attention. They seemed to have their own wordless conversation. She looked from one to the other. “What am I missing?”

“That might be true if you believe the maps. If you sail west believing you’ll find the Grey Waste, you’ll find the Grey Waste,” Qyburn explained.

“But if you sail west with someone believing you’ll find something else...” Euron finished, his usual arrogant smirk making its way to his face. “You find Misthaven.”

“I’ve never heard of that land.”

“You wouldn’t, Your Grace, very few people in this country or even Essos has. It’s an old land protected by an ancient magic. If you don’t believe in its existence, you’ll never find it.”

Cersei raised her brow at the two men. “And you two believe in this place that’s on none of the maps? That no one in living history has ever spoken of?”

“I’ve seen it,” Euron told her. “I sailed with a one handed man from there. There is magic in Misthaven, there are sorceresses and witches, people who have magic beyond any dream you could ever have. Last I heard a witch who goes by the moniker ‘Evil Queen’ ruled it.”

“I’ve never seen it, but some of the Maesters of old made reference to a land where illnesses could be cured in the blink of an eye or a single drop of potion,” Qyburn added. “It’s real, Your Grace, I assure you.”

A land of magic you needed to believe to see with sorceresses and potions that could heal the injured and a witch for a Queen. It sounded positively absurd. 

But… wasn’t Maggie’s curse magic? The dead and dragons walked amongst them, wasn’t that magic? Didn’t the Northmen believe in their magic trees and the Wildlings believed in queerer things beyond the Wall? Maybe the ‘Shadowlands beyond Asshai’ that people talked about in fearful hushed whispers were just another name for this ‘Misthaven’. Was it so insane to believe another land had magic?

“If this place is real, I’ll stake my life they went there to ask for help in defeating the dead,” Cersei mused out loud.

“That’s my guess as well.” Qyburn turned towards Euron. “Could you find your way there again? Without one of the natives, just you and your crew?”

“With me as well.” Both Qyburn and Euron turned towards Cersei. “I’m going with him, as will you Qyburn.”

“Your Grace, do you think that wise?” Qyburn asked her. “Given your recent injury?”

“Are the Fire Priests and Dothraki and Unsullied and all the armies of Westeros beating back the army of the dead?”

“It’s at a standstill, Your Grace. Once the dead figure out a way past the wall of fire…”

“So no. More than likely, without the help of these magicians in this other land, Westeros will be overrun.”

“More than likely, Your Grace.”

“Do you think I’ll be safe that I remain here? At the end of the world with most of Westeros and the savages from across the narrow sea as living corpses?”

Qyburn shook his head. “No, Your Grace.”

“Besides if these people are as powerful as you both claim then the Dragon Queen will try to rally them to her side once the Long Night is over. I say we go there and not only be seen making an effort to help fight the threat of the dead but we make sure if we do survive, those people fight for the right side. If they don’t want to fight for me, well… How unfortunate for them.”

A smile rose to Quburns pale thin lips and a sparkle shined bright in his hazel eyes. “How unfortunate, indeed, Your Grace.”

After she sent the two men away to make preparations for the journey Cersei got out of bed, ignoring the cramping pain, and made her way to the window. Her hand cradled her stomach as she looked over the bustling city. 

Her son had been taken from her. She should have killed Tyrion when he was a child but Jaime never would have forgiven her. Now he killed her father and with the help of Sansa he killed her son. Cersei was going to kill him. Every one of them; Tyrion, Sansa, The Tarth woman, Jaime for abandoning her when she needed him most, all on the word of that ugly beast, the Dragon Queen... The pain she was feeling now couldn’t be compared to anything else on this earth; but she would make sure to do her absolute best to make them all feel something similar...

* * *

Melisandre stared at the brazier, her hand running over the ruby at her throat. The heat from the wall of fire, some fifty feet high, that the priestesses and priests had set alit from one end of the neck to the other, even though it was a ways off, wrapped her in a comforting warmth like a mother might hold her babe or a man might hold his lover.

“Lord of Light, cast your light upon us,” the red woman breathed as she stared into the flames. “Lord of Light, defend us. For the night is dark and full of terrors.”

Outside, above the crackling of flames and shouts of men came the screaming and groaning of the army of the dead. 

“Lord of Light, come to us in our darkness. For the night is dark and full of terrors. Show me the way,” she whispered, leaning closer to the brazier. The heat licked at her face and her eyes grew wider as she watched the dancing orange and red. “Show me the light. Guide me to your warrior. For the night is dark and full of terrors.” 

There, amongst the blaze, Melisandre found the truth the Lord wanted to see. 

A sword and an archers bow. 

A brilliant blue sapphire, as pure as a maid and a clouded emerald embedded in the hilt of the sword shone bright against the inferno. Another sapphire as pure as the other blue gemstone was engraved in the handle of the wooden bow with a dark brown almost black diamond set beside it. A strange pale mist surrounded the weapons, mating them, binding them, interlocking them forever... 

Melisandre blinked, and then nothing but flames took their place. She gasped as she took a step back, taking a shuddering deep breath.

“Thank you,” she whispered, bowing her head before she hurried out of her tent.

The Red Woman knew where she had to go, the Lord had shown her the way. She only had one piece of the puzzle but it was enough. She knew where she had to go, and she knew who the darkness would flee from…

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	6. Regina

Regina slowly sipped on her wine as she looked on at the two knights in the courtyard rather impressed. Back and fourth, forwards and backwards, cut and parry, overcut and underhand, advance and retreat then again and again… It seemed to be more of a dance than a fight between the two of them. 

She had never seen such magnificent swordplay, nor had Henry judging by the astonishment lighting up his face as he looked on. Jaime would smirk and purr comments at the tall blonde that would leave her blushing and the ugly woman would push back with a mannish grunt and loud yell until, finally, they were red faced, gasping for air and looking more like they just got done fucking rather than fighting, one of them would yield to the other.

A large group had gathered to watch them. Jon, Snow, Henry and David were looking on rather impressed, Hook was doing his best to explain the different moves to a confused Emma, the Stark sisters and Ruby were having a friendly conversation, Daenerys and her posse claimed a side of the courtyard all for themselves, Davos was making Granny laugh at something in a hidden away corner and even the two Greyjoy’s had come out to enjoy the nice weather and the expert swordsmanship on display. Nearly everyone was out here, all except-.

“They are quite talented aren’t they?” a voice whispered in her ear.

The Queen jumped at the sudden appearance of the famed archer, whipping towards him and shooting him a glare that he just smirked at. “Try to remember you’re in civilized society now, _Thief_ ,” she spat. “And one typically announces oneself when they enter a room.”

“Apologies, M’lady,” Robin said most unapologetically. “Sneaking around is just one of the tricks of the trade, I’m afraid.”

Regina just rolled her eyes before she turned back to the sparring match. Robin inclined his head to the two fighters. “She fights rather honorably,” he mused as they watched her pause when Jaime turned his back on her rather than strike. “She could have had him there but chose not to take it.”

“That or she’s an idiot,” Regina said, taking another sip of wine. “If you have an opening in a fight you take it.”

“Oh come now... years ago you maybe would have stabbed a man in the back but not now.”

Regina quirked a brow at the blue eyed man but decided not to argue against him. If he wanted to have the wrong impression of her, if he wanted to believe she wouldn’t fight dirty to win, well… that was on him. “Speaking of stabbing men in the back…” she pointed towards the golden haired knight. “According to Sansa that one there swore some holy vow to protect Daenerys’ father, he was his personal knightley bodyguard. Then when he was seventeen he stabbed the king in the back and ended their dynasty, hence why he’s known as the ‘Kingslayer, oathbreaker, a man without honor’.” She snickered. “These Westerosi are more obsessed with honor and the like than your whole lot.”

Robin frowned at the bit of gossip. “Did he become king afterwards?”

“He just wanted to stay a knight.”

“So he killed the king but didn’t want to take the monarchs place?”

“Mmm. Became the most hated man in the world though.”

His frown grew more pronounced. “Poor man.”

“ _Poor man_?”

“Yes, poor man. If he swore a sacred vow to protect the king and he knew what killing him would cost him... something must have forced his hand.”

“Well according to practically everyone who sailed with them, his whole family are just a bunch of snakes so...” Regina shrugged. “Who knows? His sister sits on the throne now so maybe he was playing the long game. Either way?” She motioned flippantly to the two fighters who had taken a momentary break in their fighting and were taking swigs of water from the same wine skin. Regina watched as Jaime shifted rather uncomfortably as Brienne licked the a drop of water from her plump lips, utterly unaware of the effect it had on her sparring partner. “Whatever _that_ is? It’s not gonna last.”

Robin quirked his head to the side. “Why do you say that?” he inquired. “A blind man could see they feel something for one another.”

“Well for one; you’d have to _be_ blind to find her attractive. Oh don’t give me that, you know it’s true,” Regina said with a roll of her eyes as Robin shot her a sharp glare. “Men who look that good don’t get with women who look like _that_.”

“I sure hope you aren’t teaching your son that it’s okay to judge others by their looks. Particularly others as honorable, morally decent and kind as I’ve found the Lady Brienne the few times I’ve spoken to her,” Robin challenged in a way that very few had ever challenged the Queen.

Rather than argue, he did make somewhat of a point and Brienne was teaching Henry how to sword fight after all, Regina tossed her hand up in mock surrender. “Fine, no more insulting her. But my point still stands; tens don’t get with threes and she’s way too good for him anyway.”

“I thought he was too good for her?”

“No, I said he was too _attractive_ for her. But you talk to anyone in that group, they’ll all tell you he’s a dishonorable smug asshole who should have lost his title, hardly fit to lick the bottom of boots. Now ask about big blondey and she’s the most honorable woman they’ve ever seen, she’s loyal, dedicated, a ‘true knight’...”

“Forgive me M’lady, I still don’t see the correlation.”

“He’s a villain,” she clarified. “He’s a villain, she’s a hero, she’s honorable, he’s not…” Regina gave the archer a sad little smile. “Villains don’t get happy endings.”

Robin frowned at the Queen. “Where is that written?”

“How about every story ever written.”

“In that case; who decides who gets to be the hero and who gets to be the villain? To the rich I’m a villain. I threaten them at sword point, I steal jewels from their wives jewelry boxes, I take their hard earned taxes. To the poor I’m a hero. I’m a man of honor who allows parents to be able to feed their children. Do I deserve a happy ending or no?” Regina pursed her lips, hating the smug grin that arose on Robin's face when he realized she didn’t have an answer. 

He pointed at Daenerys who was side eyeing Jaime from her spot in the courtyard, offended by the sheer happiness that was radiating out of him. “To one person you might be a villain.” He nodded towards the two knights who were taking a break from the match and sat together rather close, sharing smiles and secrets that left the tall woman blushing and the handsome man laughing. Robin turned back to Regina and took a step closer to the queen. He was so close she could smell the forest scent that surrounded him; woods and rivers and earth in all its magnificent beauty. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs and she had to swallow hard as she gazed up at him. Another half step closer and he would have been pressed up against her. “To another; you’re a hero, Your Majesty.”

Regina parted her lips, unsure of what to say to his words or the fact he was standing so close and how for the first time since Daniel a fluttering of butterflies were going wild in her stomach. 

Before she could think of something to say, much less process exactly what was happening, a familiar loud screech came from overhead. A moment later two of Zelena's flying monkeys swooped down into the courtyard.

“Get inside!” David shouted to the confused Westerosi, brandishing his sword. “Go, get inside the castle!”

The Bloodriders didn’t need to be told twice. The three screamers, Drogon and Greyworm surrounded Daenerys and Missandei, brandishing arakhs, a sword and a spear in respected order and quickly made their way back inside with Daenerys crying out for Jon. Brienne shouted at Podrick to get Sansa to safety as she and Jaime tossed away their blunted swords and held their edged ones aloft, mirror images of one another as they stood back to back. The squire did his duty, grabbing the terrified redhead and hurrying her into the castle while the red head fought and screamed for her brother and sister, both of whom had weapons of their they had had unsheathed, a long bastard sword with a white wolf pommel for Jon and a black and gold dagger for Arya. Davos ran over and grabbed hold of Ruby and Henry and hurried them inside as Granny loaded her crossbow and took aim.

The ones that were left all held their weapons aloft; a cutlass for Hook, a gun for a shocked Emma who to this day still didn’t comprehend the things from her childhood books and movies were real, and a bow for Snow. Yara raised a sharp rusted throwing ax in one hand and a curved dirk in the other while her brother drew back an arrow in his bow. Besides Regina Robin has loaded his own longbow and took aim at the beasts.

The monkeys flew around the courtyard, screeching and howling, dodging the arrows the three archers fired as well as the fireball from Regina’s hand. Robin drew another arrow and fired it with all the speed and accuracy the legend was known for, hitting one of them square in the chest and watching as it fell to the ground. They barely had time to acknowledge the win when the other monkey flew at Regina. Robin dove in front of her and the winged beast screamed, grabbing him by the arm and flinging him across the courtyard.

“Robin!” Regina cried as the thief smacked his head hard into one of the concrete pillars and laid there motionless. Before she could conjure another fireball the monkey grabbed hold of her arm and began to take flight.

Regina batted at it while it flew but she might as well have been hitting a brick wall. Just as she feared she was going to fly out of the courtyard, there was a loud cry and then a heavy weight around her midsection as someone leapt and launched themselves at Regina, wrapping their arms tightly around her waist. The combined weight of her and her hero was too much and the monkey was forced to let go, screeching in rage as the two fell to the ground with the man crashing atop of Regina.

The flying monkey dove for the two of them but before they could inflict anymore damage there was a loud screaming cry, the whistle of sharp steel, and Brienne's sword sliced through one of the beasts arms like a hot knife through butter. Gushing blood and howling in pain, the monkey flew off up and over the castle walls, it’s cries growing fainter and fainter until there was only silence.

“Are you alright?” a gentle voice asked low in her ear. Regina blinked, and realized that the man who had saved her was none other than Jaime Lannister, and he was lying on top of her. 

Jaime was tall, taller than even David much less Robin or Daniel, and strong too, she could feel his hard muscles beneath his crimson leather jerkin. He was attractive, _very_ attractive, with deep emerald green eyes and golden hair painted with grey but his smug expressions, the way he carried himself… Jaime reminded Regina far too much of the smug arrogant princes who tried to woo her as a girl. 

“I’m okay,” she managed to say. With a curt nod Jaime climbed off her and offered his flesh hand to her. “I said I’m fine,” Regina grumbled as she unsteadily rose to her feet. When she stumbled Jaime caught her by the arm and pulled her tight against his chest before she could fall again.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brienne blushing crimson and staring holes in the ground, avoiding looking at the two of them at all costs, as she put her blood stained sword back in its scabbard. 

Regina hurried past him, ignoring the muttered, “a little bloody gratitude would be nice,” and hurried over to Robin. She found the archer surrounded by the rest of the men and women who had stood their ground, a thin streak of blood staining his hand and trailing down his forehead. Regina pushed past the group and kneeled by his side. 

“Robin?” she called out, a usually sharp voice far softer than she would have imagined herself using with someone who wasn’t Henry. “Robin are you okay?”

At the sound of her voice he fluttered his blue eyes open and met her brown ones. “I’m glad to see you’re still standing, M’lady,” he groaned.

“You saved me,” she said. “Why?”

“Because it’s also written that heroes rescue heroes,” he replied with a weak smile. 

Not knowing how on earth she was supposed to respond to that, she ran her hand over the cut on his head, watching as her purple shimmering magic healed it in a matter of seconds, the blood and cut disappeared into thin air. There was a loud shocked muttering from the Westerosi still in the Courtyard. 

“Seven Hells…” Davos gasped. “You can heal people…”

“Your Grace,” Jon began, desperate, as he sheathed his sword. “Your magic, it’s so powerful, it’s… we could win the war in a fortnight, if you just-.”

“Incase you didn’t notice, we have our own problems here,” Regina snapped as she helped Robin stand. “I don’t have time to deal with ice zombies when I have a wicked witch who wants to kill me.”

“Your Grace, _please_ -.”

“Later, Jon.” They all turned and saw Sansa, icy blue eyes brimmed with tears, who had emerged from the castle with Podrick standing by her side. She was looking at Regina,doing her absolute best to maintain that stoic mask she wore so well and so often since she arrived. “If it’s not too much trouble though, Your Grace, I would like to request an audience?”

Regina raised a perfectly manicured brow before she gave a curt nod. After Regina made sure Henry was alright and reassured Robin was okay to walk, the courtyard cleared out. 

It hadn’t escaped her attention that Brienne had hurried on ahead in front of Jaime and the rest. 

When they were finally alone Sansa put her hands in front of her dress, a pretty little thing of black and grey. “Do we know what that thing was?”

Regina nodded. “That… was what we call a flying monkey. They’re my sister’s henchmen. We don’t exactly get along,” she added, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Are there anymore?”

“I don’t know. Brienne managed to hack ones arm off, Robin managed to kill another but who knows? In the movie she had a whole army.”

“A movie?”

“Never mind. But if we stay inside they shouldn’t be able to hurt us.”

A sad smile carved its way into her pale ivory face. “The ones that choose to stay inside, you mean. The ones who go outside, who choose to fight are put in danger. My brother and sister, people who care about me… they’re all put in danger while I sit inside and wait for word of casualties.” Sansa sighed, letting a tiny bit of her mask crack. “All my life I’ve just been waiting for a death count after the battle, waiting for someone else to save me, waiting for a true knight to come charging in on their white horse to protect me… I’m sick of waiting.”

“So… what, you want to learn how to swing a sword?” Regina scoffed. “You are talking to the wrong person if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want to learn how to swordfight,” Sansa corrected her. “I have a hundred guards who know how to swordfight, I have Brienne and Podrick, I have Jon... But none of us… none of us have what you have. **_I_ **want what you have. I want to learn magic.”

At this Regina raised her brow again. “You want to learn magic?”

“I want to be able to protect myself, I want to be able to heal others, I want to be able to defeat the North's enemies… Can you teach me?”

“It depends,” the queen answered honestly. “You need to be born with it, that ability to channel your power through you and force it out of you.”

“The Starks, we’ve always had the magic and blessings of the Old Gods in our veins,” Sansa told her. 

“Well I don’t know about all that but I suppose there’s no harm in seeing if you even have magic to teach you how to use.” Regina conjured a simple blank piece of parchment and held it out to Sansa who took it, quirking a confused brow at her but stayed silent. “Close your eyes. Now… summon up that moment that made you so angry, you would have killed if you could.” 

She saw the redhead swallow hard. “Wha- what about a happy memory?” she asked, her voice hitched in a slight fear and panic.

“They aren’t as strong. Do you want to learn or not?”

A beat and then, “I do.”

“Then you’re going to do what I say, without question. This is how my teacher taught me so that’s how I’m going to teach you. If you don’t like it there’s the door.” Sansa said nothing in response nor did she move from her spot so Regina continued. “Think of a moment that makes you **_enraged_ **.”

Sansa licked at her lips. “The- The boy I was promised too, the prince, he accused my father of treason. The prince promised me he would spare him, he promised he would show him mercy.” Her voice trembled in anger and grief. “He cut my father's head off in front of me. Then he made me go up on the walls and _look_ at it, he- he had his Kingsguard hit me, he told me I had to _obey_ him and we were still to be married, he said he was going to kill my brother… I was thirteen years old.”

Regina's eyes grew wide with shock, with disgust and anger for what this girl had been through. Never, not even at the height of her Evil Queen days, did something like that ever cross her mind to do to Snow much less when she was just a child.

“If you could go back and change what happened,” Regina said, voice shaking with rage. “What would you do? You’re on that wall, your father's head is in front of you, that prince is in front of you… what would you do, Sansa?”

“I would have Theon, Jon, Brienne; they would beat Joffrey until they hurt him as much as he hurt me,” the wolf growled. The paper in her hand began to shake while her hands remained steady. “Then I would take my father's sword. I would take Ice and I would chop off Joffrey's arms, his legs, his tongue, his eyes, I would make him _drown_ in blood. I would crack his kneecaps so he couldn’t stand, I would cut every finger from his hand, every toe from his foot, I would make him _scream_ until his throat collapsed.” The tear grew larger and the paper vibrated harder. “I would make his _bitch mother_ look at her _precious Joffrey's_ head as long as I had to look, and I would do the same to Cersei, to Ramsey, to _all_ of them!”

A small explosion made Regina and Sansa both jump, the latters eyes opening wide as the shreds of what was once a full sheet of paper which now amounted to nothing but confetti rained down on the two women. 

Sansa’s body shook dangerously. “I did it,” she whispered, half terrified and half exhilarated. “I did it, I… I have magic…”

A slow, dangerous smile rose to Regina’s lips. “You do. You have a _lot_ of magic inside of you, more then I’ve ever seen.” She clapped the younger girl on the shoulder. “And I’m going to teach you how to use it…”

Please Review!


	7. Brienne/Jaime

_ Scccrape. Scccrape. Scccrape. _

“My lady?”

_ Scccrape. Scccrape. Scccrape. _

“My lady?”

_ Scccrape. _

“My lady?”

“What, Podrick?” Brienne snapped, finally looking up from sharpening her sword with the pumice stone to look up at him. 

The young squire swallowed hard. “I- I just- I wanted to see if you were okay. You’ve been fairly quiet since the fight with the flying thing.” Her face softened and Brienne sighed as he stammered out an apology for the interruption and a promise that he would leave her alone. It wasn’t his fault she was upset, and she shouldn’t take it out on him.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you. I’m just… it’s been a long day.”  _ A very long day. _ “And tomorrow Snow wants to throw a ball-.”

“Our Snow?”

“Their Snow. But I’m just…” She shook her head. Pod didn’t need to be burdened with her problems, especially problems pertaining to Jaime Lannister. 

Brienne turned back to sharpening her sword, not that valyrian steel needed sharpening in the first place, but it was a monotonous task that left her mind free to wonder. Of course she didn’t exactly like where it wondered too but you win some, you lose some. Podrick took the seat beside her on the patch of grass, watching as she sharpened her sword for a moment before he spoke. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you to help fight.”

“You did what I told you to do,” she said without looking up from her sword. “You protected Lady Sansa and got her out of harms range.”

“But still-.”

“Daenerys’ Bloodriders, Greyworm, Drogon; none of them stayed and fought. They protected their Queen and did their job, which is exactly what you did.” 

Pod gave her a half-hearted ‘yes, My Lady,’ but Brienne didn’t push him any further. Her mind was still full of troubles surrounding Jaime. Jaime and the seductive beautiful queen he saved and fell on top of and held to his chest. 

She went back to sharpening her sword, sliding the smooth pummel stone against the gleaming metal, hoping for some silence, which she got for a moment, until he called for her attention again.

“Yes?” she snapped, her annoyance with the squire rising. He looked halfway ashamed to interrupt her and she once again found herself apologizing for her foul mood.

“I’m just tired, Podrick,” she told him as she turned back to her sword. “I just want a few minutes to myself if that’s alright.”

He didn’t heed her words. Instead he sat by her side and asked her another question. He was cautious, like she was apt to bite his head off again. Given the nature of the question it was an understandable worry. “Does your fatigue have anything to do with Ser Jaime?”

She stopped mid-scrape, pursing her lips before she continued, running the heavy stone on the grey steel a bit more heavier than before. “Of course not,” she answered, praying that just once her cheeks didn’t burn at the mention of her companion.

“Are you sure?”

_ Scccrape.  _ “I’m positive.”

“I’m sorry for asking, My Lady, I just… I noticed you and him, the two of you-.”

“Well you thought wrong.” 

Brienne tossed down the heavy black stone, stood up from her spot and re-sheathed her sword. Without another look towards the embarrassed boy she stomped off towards the castle

* * *

“Your Grace?”

Jaime watched as the dark haired queen turned to face him. She wore tight leather pants and a corset so low cut he would be amazed if her breasts didn’t pop free at any moment. 

Regina was gorgeous. Her sensual eyes, the purr in her voice, the big lips that were constantly smirking and possessing curves that men would have waged war over. But she reminded him far too much of Cersei for him to find her anything more than attractive. The way she moved, the way she spoke and if the rumors were true, she acted in a similar manner to his sister as well which simply served to push him further away. Plus the hair that was dark as pitch did nothing for him either. 

Jaime had always been partial to blondes. 

“What?” she asked him, voice as sharp as steel. Jaime raised a brow in her direction. She was a rather rude one as well…

“Forgive me for intruding, Your Grace. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine. You can go now.”

“You know it wouldn’t kill you to say thank you to the man who saved your life.” 

She smirked at him, heavily lidded eyes peering around him from under long lashes. “Yes but on the other hand why risk it?” 

He had to bite his tongue so hard he nearly drew blood, deciding it wouldn’t be in his best interest to cuss out a magical woman who goes by the moniker ‘evil queen’. But as Jaime went to storm out of the room, she called him back, a sigh on her words and he could feel her rolling her eyes to the heavens.

“I’m sorry,” Regina said when he finally turned back around. “I’m… still getting used to the whole hero thing,” she admitted. Jaime bit back telling her basic manners weren’t the mark of a hero but rather the mark of a half-way decent civilized person. “But I’m fine.” That smug grin was back. “It’ll take more than a little scratch to set me off. How are you though? You took a pretty nasty fall.”

“I’m okay. I’ve been in worse scrapes than this.”

“Good. And how’s your girlfriend? She looked a little upset when she left the courtyard.”

Jaime quirked his head to the side. “I’m sorry, who are you talking about?”

“Brienne of Tarth? Tall ugly blonde who carries a big sword, makes Quasimodo look like Brad Pitt?”

His hand curled around the hilt of his sword. “Don’t ever call her ugly again,” he warned. 

Regina scoffed. “Please, you have working eyes, her face could scare the white off a ghost.”

The lion stalked forward. “The only reason I haven’t backhanded you yet,” he growled. “Is because slapping the woman who decides rather or not she lends us her armies probably wouldn’t be in Westeros best interest.”

Not even a hint of fear crossed her porcelain face. Instead the corners of her painted lips tugged upwards. “You’re right,” she practically purred, as if the thought of being smacked across the face with a heavy metal hand amused her somehow. “It wouldn’t be in your best interest.” She threw her hands up in mocking surrender. “But fine, I’ll be nice.” 

Regina started to walk away, her hips swaying not of any conscious decision but the sheer volume of the heels made it impossible for her not to walk as if she was sex on a stick. But after the comments about Brienne, Jaime found himself wondering how he ever could have thought her attractive in the first place.

“How did you two end up together anyway?” she asked as she sat down on a plush black chair. “I mean aside from the fact you’re a 9 and she’s a 2.9 on a good day.”

“We aren’t  _ together _ ,” he argued. His temper was growing shorter and shorter the longer he talked to her. “We’re just friends, companions.”

She scoffed, as if that was the funniest thing she ever heard. “Please, you two look like you belong on the cover of a Nicholas Sparks book.”

“I don’t know who this Spark storyteller is, but me and Ser Brienne aren’t romantically involved.” 

The way his heart sank and the way depression stabbed at him at the truthful words bit him both alarmed and confused him. Why should he care if they weren’t romantically involved? Why should he be disappointed if they weren’t, as the queen put it,  _ together? _

“I’m just saying, the signs are there. How did you two even become whatever it is you are?”

“She was tasked with bringing me to Kingslanding in an exchange of prisoners,” he explained. “We fought, quite a bit, in the beginning. It came to blows actually.” Jaime smiled at the memory where he knew halfway through their bout that she wasn’t going to hurt him and had she not beaten him he would have more than likely let her live. It fell when he remembered what happened afterwards though. “We were taken prisoner by a group of people, they wanted to hurt her and I protected her which was how I earned this.” He held up the golden hand. “Brienne kept me alive afterwards, convinced me to live, and after that we just… grew closer,” he settled on. “I told her a secret that I never told anyone before, not my father, my sister, my brother, and she trusted me because of it. Called me a good man. Then i was forced to leave, she was forced to stay but I came back for her. They had her in the bear pit and I jumped in to save her.”

Regina's eyes had grown large and her jaw had dropped slightly. “You… you jumped into a bear pit, one handed, for this woman?”

“She would have done the same for me. And Brienne, she’s saved me too.” A faint smile tugged at his lips. “More than once. In the Battle for Winterfell, from my own self-demise, from a mob of angry Northmen who would have wanted nothing more than to see my head on a spike. But more than that, she made me realize I can come back from my past, that I can change, I can be the person I want to be. She convinced me that I don’t have to be the villain just because that’s what everyone thinks of me.”

For some reason, tears shone in her brown eyes but there was something else shining in them as well. Hope, and a desperate belief that his words rang true.

“Do you really believe all that?” she asked him, voice soft and small. “That people can change? Truly change? That villains can become heroes? No matter what’s in their past?”

“I don’t know if I do, to be perfectly honest.” The Kingslayer smiled at the Evil Queen. “But I know she does, and that’s all that matters to me.”

A smile, a true genuine smile without smugness or slyness or dripping with sex, grew on Reginas face. She made short work of the space between them and threw her arms around him. Jaime froze for a moment, a long moment, before he wrapped his arms around her as well, hoping the awkwardness he was feeling wasn’t as evident in the embrace as it was in his face.

They both missed the flash of pale blonde hair in the doorway.

* * *

She knew it. Brienne knew it.

Regina was beautiful, she was seductive, gorgeous, magical, she was walking sex and what’s worse was she knew it, and so did Jaime. 

The tall knight chastised herself as she walked away from the castle into the woods, needing to get away from everything, from all the people, from all the noises, from anywhere where Jaime was. She had no right to feel jealous. She should be  _ happy _ for Jaime that he found someone who wasn’t his sister, she should be  _ encouraging  _ him to be with someone other than Cersei, even if it wasn’t her. He deserved a beautiful queen, not an ugly knight.

Brienne hadn’t meant to catch them, honestly. She only went to Regina's chambers to see how she was doing after the attack and she walked in on the two of them embracing and hugging. Jaime has his back turned to her and she thought he looked rather rigid but the queen was smiling at least. She was smiling, he was hugging her, and her heart crumbled in her chest.

When she was far enough away from the castle that she knew no one else would venture, not even Podrick, she allowed herself a moment to sink down on the soft earth and leaned her head back against the tree.

This was Renly and Margaery all over again, only this time it was worse. As much as it hurt when she watched her king wed, watching Jaime embrace this other woman, this gorgeous regal beauty, that hurt a hundred times worse. If seeing Renly with Margaery was a pin-prick on a finger then seeing Jaime with Regina was a dagger in her chest.

Just as the first tears started to gather in her eyes, Brienne heard something. A sob, as a matter of fact, a woman’s sob. Slowly and cautiously, the blonde stood from her little spot and clutched the hilt of her sword and made her way towards the sound. 

She found it easily enough and it was indeed a woman, dressed all in black with a black brimmed hat and fire red curls. The crying woman had her back to Brienne and had her legs pulled to her chest and was doing her best to muffle the sound of her sobs but it didn’t make any difference.

Brienne took a cautious step towards her, letting her grip on her sword loosen. “Hello?” she called out to the red headed woman. The crying woman’s sobs stopped and she snapped her head up. “Do you need help?” Brienne asked.

“Please leave,” the woman said through her tears. She spoke of one Highborn and when she lifted her hands to swipe at her tears Brienne noticed green gloves covering them.

She took another step towards her, letting go of Oathkeeper completely. “I will but you have to promise me you’re alright first.” 

The woman took a shuddering breath before she slowly turned and faced Brienne, who took a hurried step back and unsheathed Oathkeeper. “No,” Zelena said as more tears fell down her green face. “I’m not okay.”

“You’re the witch,” Brienne said, struggling to keep her hand steady as she brandished the sword, remembering what the natives told the Westerosi about the woman who sent the flying beasts after them, including the hideous green skin. She expected cackling or magic or anything but an expression of pain and hurt.

“I’m not a witch!” she cried and more tears fell down her face but she made no move to defend herself against the steel pointed at her heart. “No more than Regina is!”

“You sent those monsters after us, you’re trying to curse this land.”

Zelena shook her head. “I’m not, I swear it. And the flying monkeys, they’re wild animals, they do what they want, I didn’t have any control over them, that’s just a lie my sister made up.”

“Your sister?”

“Regina.”

Brienne furrowed her brow. They hadn’t told her that Zelena and Regina were siblings. The green skinned woman wiped at her tears and slowly stood. The knight clutched the sword with both hands but once again the witch made no movement’s to disarm her or strike her. “Regina's my sister. She’s jealous that I’m more powerful than her so she- she started these rumors to make people turn against me but I never asked to have magic, no more than I asked for this.” She motioned to herself and Brienne lowered her sword a hair. Zelena wiped at the last of her tears. “She’s always been cruel to me. When we were girls she… she used to call me ugly. She told me any compliment any man ever paid me would only be because they were trying to win favor with our father, she called me a beast.” Her painted lip trembled. “Zelena the Beauty she called me, some great joke.”

She let the point of Oathkeeper drop to the ground. “I’m sorry,” Brienne said, swallowing hard. A thousand painful memories were clawing to the surface that she fought to keep hidden. “I didn’t… I had no idea.”

“It’s alright. You didn’t know.” Zelena smiled at her. A hint of something mad lurked beneath the surface of the gesture but Brienne brushed it away. “Things are going to change for me very soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been brewing a potion that would make me beautiful, it will take away the green. Once that’s done I can leave the Enchanted Forest, find my soulmate and settle down. That’s all I ever wanted in life, to find an honorable man who loves me. I may have been blessed with magic but if I had the chance between loving a good man and power…. I would give it up in a heartbeat. The only reason I even developed my magic so much was because it’s the only way I knew to make my parents proud of me.”

More harsh and painful memories were remembered. 

“I… I understand completely, about wanting to settle down. And that’s great, Zelena, about the potion.”

“It is but I-... I need one last thing from the castle, something Regina has that she stole from me.”

“What?”

“Our mothers spellbook. I need that to complete the potion, once it’s done… I’ll be beautiful. But the problem is Regina has it protected with magic, dark magic. It’s the opposite of blood magic in fact, only someone who's not her family may touch it.” She beamed excitedly at Brienne. “Hey… hey you’re one of the ones staying at the castle right?”

A sickening sinking feeling filled Brienne with dread. “I- I am but-.”

“Then you could grab it for me!”

The tall knight shook her head. “No. I’m sorry I can’t.”

“Oh please!” She grabbed her calloused hands with smooth soft ones. “I need that book.”

“I don’t feel comfortable stealing from anyone, much less a queen with magic.”

“It’s okay, she won’t notice! You put this-,” she waved her hand and in a puff of lime-green smoke a heavy brown leather bound book was suddenly in her hands,” in its place, She'll never know the difference.”

“I- I’m sorry, Zelena, I just don’t feel comfortable doing this.”

A flash of anger crossed on the green woman’s face but only for a moment and then it was gone. “What if we make a deal? You get me the book and I make you beautiful?”

Brienne stared at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. No. No it wasn’t possible. “You what?” she breathed, hardly able to believe it. 

“I can make you beautiful! I know a man, a man willing to make deals. If you get me the book, he will make you the most beautiful woman in the world. You could have any man in the world, any man your heart desired would be yours.”

Her head was spinning. Brienne would be beautiful. She would be more beautiful than even Cersei or Regina. She would never be mocked or treated cruelly again, Jaime would want to kiss her, he would want to lay with her like he laid with his sister, he would want her, he would fall in love with her...

She shook the fantasies from her mind. Stealing was wrong, stealing from a woman who may offer them aid was even worse. “If… if this man is able to make me beautiful,” even just saying the words brought a fluttering other heart and filled her with a desire that was stronger than anything she ever felt before in her life, “then why can’t he just steal the book for you or make you beautiful? Why do you need my help?”

“It’s protected from this man as well, using spells and dark magic. I need  _ you _ . Please?” 

Brienne stammered out more excuses, she didn’t want to steal, she didn’t want to anger Regina, she didn’t trust magic, but Zelena waved away them all.

“You think about it, and if you agree to help me be beautiful and find love, to help yourself get the same things, then take the book, come out to this spot, and call out a name.”

“What name?” She conjured a long slip of paper and handed it to Brienne who looked at the long queer word. “Rump-.”

“Not yet,” the red head warned. “Not until you have the book.”

“I haven’t even agreed to steal it yet!”

Zelena smiles at her, but there was something different about it this time, something almost dangerous. She reached up and laid a green hand on her pale cheek and long sharp dagger like nails were almost painful against her flesh. “I know.”

Without another word Zelena disappeared in a flash of green smoke, leaving Brienne alone, bewildered, and for the first time in her life, finding herself wanting to do the wrong thing more than anything else...

Please Review


	8. The Knight, the Wolf and the Queen

**_BRIENNE_ **

Brienne smoothed out the blue dress that Regina had conjured her. It was a thing of beauty, made of heavy silk and dotted with golden shooting stars. The skirt swept the floor when she moved, the long sleeves were sheer lace and a dark pink jewel hung between her small breasts. On any other girl it would have been a pretty dress, but on Brienne it just reminded her of everything she wasn’t.

_ But you could be,  _ a voice in the back of her mind purred that the knight tried her best to ignore. 

She told Regina about the green skinned woman the moment she returned from the woods. The dark haired queen told her that Zelena was lying, that they never met before they returned to the Enchanted Forest and anything she wanted Brienne to do would just lead to destruction.

That should have been the end of it. That  _ would _ have been the end of it had Brienne not muttered out. “So she could never make me beautiful...”

Regina shrugged. “Oh she could, or Rumple could at least. But trust me, it wouldn’t be worth it. All magic comes with a price and whatever they want you to pay isn’t worth it.”

_ Easy for you to say _ , she wanted to say to the queen but instead Brienne just nodded, wished her a good day and walked off to take out her frustrations on a few unlucky squires in the courtyard. The next day passed without incident except with the growing fear in the pit of Brienne’s stomach of the ball that was being held in their honor. She could dance as well as any Highborn Lady but the last time she went to a ball she was humiliated, she had been toyed with and it was a cut that left a deep scar that still pained her all these years later. 

What if she was just as embarrassed here in Misthaven? It had been bad enough when it was in front of her father but this time Sansa and Pod and Jaime would be there to witness her utter failure at trying to be a proper woman. She would have been lying if she didn’t admit the dress and hair, no longer slicked back but hanging as down as it could be with several pieces falling into her face, made her look almost pretty. But she was still tall and broad shouldered, and she was still as ugly as ever, no matter how much the gown tried to convince her otherwise.

Brienne could hear the voices swell from the ballroom down below and she gnawed at her lip. Not only would she have to suffer through a ball, but it was Misthaven tradition that each woman of honor be introduced by name and they would have to make a long walk down stairs to their waiting male companion (who had been introduced prior to them.) Brienne was going first with Missandei so at least she wouldn’t have to wait for long but whereas the talented linguist would have her stern face unsullied waiting for her, Brienne would have just another reminder that she was alone. Podrick offered to stand for her but she thanked him, and told him she wouldn’t make him stand around waiting for her (not letting him know that the only thing worse than having nobody was having your much younger squire there as a pity date. Not to mention custom decreed he would need to kiss her hand and as innocent as the gesture was, she could have lived a dozen lifetimes without knowing what Podricks lips felt like on any part of her, even if it was just the back of her hand.)

Knowing she would have to face the music sooner rather than later Brienne looked herself over in the looking glass one last time and headed out to the entrance hall where the women were waiting to make their entrance.

Arya and Yara were wearing slacks and jerkins, the wolves grey and trimmed with white fur with a silver direwolf brooch pinned to her chest and the krakens was plainer than even that, dark brown and weathered with no trinkets to speak of.

Missandei looked gorgeous in an Essos style high waisted skirt of black satin and a matching v neck baring her toned midriff and her tight curls shone beautifully in the torchlight while Sansa wore a stunning fur gown of deep grey and stark white, sharp black and icy blue. Sansa brought the North with her and Brienne almost felt a chill just by looking at her. 

But Daenerys; she was fire made flesh. Flames made of red and black and orange silk licked at her flesh and the way the almost sheer fabric moved it was as if the fire itself was alive and threatened to consume anyone who came near. It was terrifying and beautiful, frightening and breathtaking all at once. 

_ Fire and ice _ , Brienne thought to herself looking between the two women. Sansa was in the corner of the small room, her back turned to the rest of the group, muttering. Curious, Brienne went over to her and cleared her throat, following it with a “my lady,” to announce her arrival. The redheaded Stark quickly turned towards her and what Brienne saw made her eyes wide and her thick jaw drop to the floor. A dark blue flame rested in the palm of Sansa’s hand. It was small, barely more than a flicker of a candle, but it was there. Rather than seemed terrified or confuddled with the fact she was able to hold fire without pain though Sansa was beaming at her sworn shield.

“Look,” she told Brienne in a hushed whisper, grinning wildly. “Regina taught me this afternoon, she said I caught on even faster then she did!”

“Is… is that magic?” Sansa nodded eagerly and Brienne swallowed hard. “My Lady, magic is… magic killed King Renly,” she reminded her with a slight catch in her throat. “Magic is what brought the dead back to life, magic-.”

“Is something the Starks and the Northmen have had since the first men came across the Arm of Dorne,” Sansa interrupted. “Wargs and Greenseers, what Bran is, Jon coming back from the dead, Arya’s face changing powers… That’s all magic as well.”

“I know but My Lady-.”

“Besides, isn't it magic why we came here in the first place? To save the North?”

“It is but-.”

“I never learned how to fight, Brienne. I don’t have dragons, I don’t know how to be a soldier, I don’t have a priceless sword given to me by the enemy.”

Brienne pressed her lips into a hard line. “Ser Jaime is not the enemy,” she said sharply. “And he gave me this sword to protect you.”

“But don’t you see? If I learned magic then I wouldn’t need to hide during every battle helplessly waiting to hear if Jon or Arya or you or someone else I care about lived or died.” Her pale blue eyes glistened with tears, something Brienne had never seen before from the usually cold stoic Lady of Winterfell. “I could finally protect myself, Brienne. I could protect the people I love. I’ve never been able to do that before. Not with Joffrey or Ramsey or anyone.”

The knight's face fell. She was reminded that below the walls, below the mask of steel, below the cold unflinching expression there was a young girl who had been through the absolute worst that life could possibly give her.

“My Lady,” began Brienne as soft as a cloud but then Missandei was by her side and she saw the wolf cub quickly extinguish the tiny flame with a shake of her hand.

It was time to go and face the music.

The translator gave the tall knight a friendly smile before the door opened and mouthed that she was going to be fine. Brienne had gotten along better with Daenerys’ forces better than anyone in the Winterfell. The Unsullied praised her for her skill with a blade and the Dothraki marveled at her size and strength, even if she was a woman, and she had respected the foreign soldiers in return, asking Greyworm to teach her how to use an Unsullied spear and one of the Dothraki offered his services and cured Brienne’s mare when she was sick and the stable boys weren’t sure what was wrong with it.

It also didn’t hurt that she was their Queens third cousin and had, albeit diluted, the Blood of the Dragon flowing in her veins.

Taking a deep breath and already hating the blush she knew was creeping onto her cheeks, Brienne and Missandei stepped onto the grand marble staircase. 

“Missandei of Naath, and the Daughter of the Evenstar; Brienne of Tarth,” the announcer's voice rang out to polite applause but Brienne didn’t hear him or the clapping from the Misthaven residents and she didn’t notice the serving boy offer the arm she was supposed to take so he could assist her down the stairs in her long gown.

She did, however, notice Jaime dressed in a knights finery of crimson and gold standing beside Greyworm at the bottom of the stairs staring slack jawed and wide eyed at the he ugly knight, waiting for her like she was a proper lady and worthy of a man of caliber waiting for ber. Shaking, she took hold of the servant's armand kept her eyes locked on him until they were standing right in front of each other.

“My Lady,” the lion purred as he bowed and took her hand, bringing the back of it to his lips and kissing it with the tenderness and affection like you might share with a lover. “You look beautiful tonight.”

Her face burned scarlet and her blush traveled all the way down her chest. “You- you didn’t have to do this,” she stammered out when he straightened back out again. “I mean I- I’m grateful but-.”

Jaime was smiling at her and amusement danced in his emerald eyes but there was no mockery or so much as a hint of a sneer in them. “I think we’re supposed to step back now.”

Noticing that Greyworm and Missandei already were back in the crowd, Brienne muttered an apology, took Jaime’s arm, all the while ignoring the pounding of her heart and fluttering in her stomach. 

Regina was standing front and center in an extravagant strapless ball gown with a purple skirt and a purple corset with black lace trim, coming up just high enough to cover her nipples but leaving most of her ample cleavage on display. Black vines embroidered on the silky rich fabric ran rampant over the gown. Her lashes were long and thick, her lips were plump and blood red, her hair was pinned up in an elaborate updo and her eyes were heavily lidded and painted a dark plum color. She was stunning, she was seductive, she was alluring and enticing and every man’s absolute dream. 

And Jaime didn’t so much as look over at her once the rest of the introductions. He, however, kept glancing over at Brienne, more specifically his eyes would travel down and settle in her breasts, meager as they were and she had to bite back a blush while a heat began building up in places she had no idea could exist.

Arya, ‘The Daughter of the Wolf’ and Yara, ‘The Lady of the Iron Islands, Lady Reaper of Pyke and Captain of Black Wind, were brought in next. Theon, dressed in a similar fashion of Yaras, met his sister at the bottom of the stairs while Arya had Bran in heavy black furs who gave her hand a tepid unfeeling kiss before she wheeled him back out of the way.

Sansa, ‘the Lady of Winterfell’, came next, alone, receiving thunderous applause. Jon kissed her hand and she took his arm, and as she moved gracefully across the floor Brienne couldn’t help but to think that she looked every bit a queen as the Starks of old did. Daenerys and all of her lofty titles came last to the loudest cheers of all and when she and Drogon, who was looking rather handsome in a black jerkin that looked like the scales of his true form, walked towards the crowd the minstrels wasted no time in starting up their music. 

Jaime turned to Brienne and offered her his hand again. “Care to dance?” When her blush threatened to drown her and she began stammering, he just smiled. “I know I’m no Renly Baratheon,” Jaime laughed at her shocked look and she narrowed her eyes at the squire across the hall. “But I  _ do _ know how to dance.”

Gnawing at her lip, she glanced over at Sansa and she just smiled an encouraging smile and gave a curt nod. She took a deep breath, turned back to Jaime, slipped her hand into his and let him lead her to the dance floor.

He wrapped his handless arm around her waist and took her other one and soon the two of them were gliding and moving across the floor as gracefully and elegantly as the other Highborns were as a slow waltz played.

Brienne clung to him ever tighter the longer the music played, not daring to blink, not even daring to breathe for fear that he might not be here if she did anything other than move her feet. Jaime twirled her gracefully, pulling her even closer to him when she turned round to face him again. 

“You dance well,” Jaime said, twirling Brienne in his arms and proving his point when she matched him step for step. “Quite well in fact. I can see why Renly was so eager to ask a dance from you.”

“Thank you. And I don’t know if it was so much eagerness as it was trying to make a crying girl of two and ten feel better.”

Jaime’s face fell. “You were only twelve? Podrick told me most of the details but he didn’t tell me how old you were. I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said as flippantly as possible, trying to pretend like it wasn’t one of the worst moments of her life that didn’t occasionally bring a tear back to her eye when she remembered it.  _ If you were beautiful that would never have happened,  _ Zelena's voice told her and she shook it away. “And Podrick wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about that much less the finer details.”

“To be fair to the boy I did rather force it out of him.”

“How?”

“I asked him about you.”

She narrowed her eyes at her dancing partner. “Why?”

“Because you are an enigma, Lady Brienne.” They paused to clap along with the rest of the crowd as one song ended and the other began. This one was a bit more fast paced but neither of them missed a beat and they picked up their conversation where they left off. “You fascinate me.”

“I… fascinate you?”

“You do.” He twirled her under his arm and she had to dip just slightly. “You fascinate me and I know you wouldn’t have answered my questions about you if I asked so I had to utilize other resources.”

“I would have answered,” she muttered as he spun her across the floor.

“You would have?”

“Yes.”

He smiled again. “Alright then. You know you never told me if you had any brothers or sisters.”

“I did. A brother four years my senior who drowned when he was eight and twin sisters who died in the cradle.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright. But yes I’m an only child.”

“And heir to Tarth.”

“As much as it pains me to admit, yes, I am heir to Tarth.”

He quirked his head to the side. “You don’t wish to rule?”

“I- I wouldn’t mind it. It’s just… Tarth deserves better than me.”

Jaime finally stopped spinning her around the floor. “Brienne, your isle couldn’t hope for a better Lady to lead them.”

She shook her head. “I’m too manly to be Lady and too womanly to be a Lord.” Her voice caught in her throat. “My people deserve better than a freak of nature.”

He frowned and then in a surprising move he reached up and put his hand on her shoulder. It took every ounce of courage she had not to pull away. “Brienne listen to me.” His voice was firm but kind. “You have a woman’s softness and strength as well as a man’s courage and prowess with a blade; the best of both, the sun’s light and the moon's glow. Tarth should be and will be  _ honored  _ to have you as their Evenstar.”

Tears filled her blue eyes that she did her best to blink away, hating herself when instead of ceasing they fell silently down her face at the kind words no one, not even her father, had ever told her.

Jaime smiled softly at her and gently rubbed her shoulder. “You wanna to the courtyard?” he asked, giving her a thankful out.

She sniffed and nodded and without a second wasted Jaime was leading her outside and away from the crowd. A warm gentle wind was blowing, the moon was full and a million stars dotted the skies, twinkling their lights in the heavens. It was a rather beautiful night overall. The music faded to silence as the two knights made their way across the abandoned courtyard and found a bench across the way to sit.

“I’m sorry for getting emotional,” Brienne muttered, staring down at the grass beneath their feet. “You can go back inside, you don’t need to ruin your night for me.”

“You’ve been to one ball you’ve been to them all,” he answered with a careless shrug. “Although I will say you do look rather stunning tonight and as I said earlier you are quite the dancer.”

Her face went crimson with blush, “Princess Snow, she noticed I didn’t bring anything appropriate from Westeros so she had Regina magic this for me…”

“That was kind of her.”

“It was. Regina is turning out to be a rather decent monarch despite her title.” Brienne drew her lip between her teeth. “She’s quite beautiful as well.”

“She is but,” Jaime shrugged again. “Brown eyes, brown hair… They’re rather dull features on a woman if I’m being honest.”

The bitterness that had been in her mouth since the day before seemed to be washed away. “Really?” she asked, praying to the Seven that the hope wasn’t as evident in her tone as it was in her heart.

Judging by his smile her prayers had not been answered. “Yes really.” His eyes flickered upwards towards her straw colored locks. “I'm much more fond of blondes.”

The blush on her cheeks burned as bright as a Dornish sun. “Only beautiful blondes though right?” 

He quirked his head at her and narrowed his eyes at the tall knight. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Think I’m going to insult you every time we speak. You went so far as to think I was mocking you when I went to knight you.”

She shrugged, looking downwards again. “Force of habit. You were rather cruel when we first met. ‘Is that a woman?, I believe were your first ever words to me and then your first words when we were  _ alone _ was a comment on how I was much uglier in daylight. Then on the boat you told me to not only prove that I was a woman, but that the only way I could comply with that lovely request was by unlacing my breeches because ‘taking off my bodice wouldn’t prove much’.”

It was Jaime’s turn to now his head. He gnawed his lip for a moment before he turned his gaze back to her, sad, shamed green eyes meeting blue. “I’m sorry for what I said to you when we first met. I was wrong to do so, I never should have insulted your looks or your womanhood or anything else. Can you forgive me?”

Jaime’s words were sincere, kind and soft spoken. No one had ever apologized to her for their cruelty against her, not once, and this had happened years and years ago and he had changed in the way he treated her. 

“I do.” Her words were just as soft as his. She took a deep breath. “And I apologize as well.”

He laughed and gifted her one of his grins. “What on earth do you have to apologize for?”

“For all the times I called you Kingslayer. For doubting your intentions even for a moment. You aren’t the only guilty party, Ser Jaime. You’re a good man, an honorable man, and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren’t.”

She swore she saw a dampness in his eyes that he quickly blinked away. His golden hand wrapped around her waist. “You are allowed to call me Jaime, you know.”

Her voice shook but only for a moment. “Okay. Jaime.”

“Good,” he breathed before he leaned forward and kissed her. 

Brienne sat frozen for a long moment, maybe too long because he started to pull back. But then when the shock of it all faded, she kissed him back. He buried his hand in her hair as his lips moved expertly against hers while she was all clacking teeth and too much enthusiasm and not moving in sync with him but he didn’t seem to mind the absolute lack of experience. He had more than enough skill for the both of them. 

When they finally pulled apart Brienne noticed she was clutching his crimson jacket as if she might fly away and rested her forehead against his. Her eyes stayed closed, like she was terrified she would wake up and discover this was all a dream, even after Jaime asked, “first time?” She nodded rather sheepishly and the next thing she knew she felt his sharp stubble nuzzle against her ear and she shuddered as a fire erupted inside her. “Practice makes perfect,” he half purred/half growled before he took her earlobe between his teeth and gave it a sharp nip that had her holding back a moan. “And thankfully for me, you are quite the perfectionist.”

Her face turned bright Lannister red but this time he didn’t laugh at her blush. She slowly opened her eyes and the way he was looking at her, with lust and admiration and what might have even been love, was something not only new, but something she never thought she would have. She had her first kiss at a ball in an enchanted land with the most handsomest man she had ever seen who respected her as a knight and a Lady, something she even struggled with herself. These kinds of things only happen in songs and stories but here Brienne was, the ugliest woman in the world, living it. She took his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his and for the first time since Zelena made her the offer, Brienne didn’t think once about it.

**_SANSA_ **

“So you’re a wolf? An **_actual_** wolf?”

“Werewolf,” the young woman called Ruby corrected a wide eyed Sansa with a smile. “When the moon is full I change into a wolf. My granny could too but it faded away with age.”

“There were legends that the Starks of old could turn themselves into wolves, but I never believed it. You’re telling me beasts of that nature are real in this land?”

“We’re very real. There’s a full moon tomorrow, if you want I could show you in person.”

“I would love to see that, and I know Arya would love to experience that as well, thank you.” Sansa remembered the sight of Ramsey’s dogs tearing away the flesh from his bones. She smiled. “Being able to turn into a wolf, to kill your enemies with a single leap, no sword, no dagger, just you…. Must be exhilarating.”

“I try not to be violent in wolf form but… It has come in handy on occasion.”

“Perhaps it might come in handy in Westeros, if you were to fight.”

Ruby’s face fell. “If it’s not a full moon, I wouldn’t be able to be of any help.”

“Northern legend said that these shape shifting wolves were able to communicate with wolves and dogs while in human form. Are you able to do that?”

“Yes.” 

“Then you could help. You and your pack, there's wolves and dogs in Winterfell and Westeros same as here.”

“I don’t have a pack.” Ruby glanced over at the black haired princess and her charming prince dancing and smiled softly. “At least not the traditional sense.” She turned back to a Sansa and gnawed at her crimson stained lip. “If Snow and David agree to help your country, I’ll fight alongside them.”

A breath of relief escaped and a smile tugged at her lips. “Thank you, Ruby. Thank you.”

“Lady Stark.”

The two wolves turned and saw Daenerys approach them, the thin silky strips of fabric moving in a way that made her appear like she was wearing living breathing flames. Ruby excused herself to go and mingle with the prince and princess, leaving Sansa alone with the Queen.

“You look lovely tonight, Lady Stark,” the blonde told the she-wolf.

“Thank you. You look beautiful as well, Your Grace,” Sansa said clasping her hands behind her back. Daenerys gave her a rather awkward smile before she motioned to the balcony just a few feet away. “Join me?”

_ Courtesy is a Lady's armor _ , she reminded herself as she gave a polite nod and followed Daenerys out onto the balcony. The two women stood there on the marble balcony with a view of the vast wooded forest, bathed in the lights of the torches on either side. 

“We haven’t had many opportunities to speak since we landed,” Daenerys said as she peered out over the balcony.

“No we haven’t, Your Grace.” A deep breath and then, “I noticed you haven’t spoken much to my brother either.”

A shadow of pain flickered across her face. “Your brother, and I… we’re taking a break of sorts.”

Somehow that news didn’t feel as joyful as Sansa thought it would have. “I’m sorry.”

A sad smile made its way onto the Queens pale face. “You aren’t, but thank you for the sentiment.” 

“I am, Your Grace. I know that Jon must be hurting.”

“More than I?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know your feelings on the matter, Your Grace.”

Daenerys presses her lips into a hard line. “You have a great skill, Lady Stark.”

“What skill would that be?”

“Saying exactly what you’re feeling all while telling the other person exactly what they want to hear.”

A flicker of a smirk tugged at her lips. “You don’t grow up in a place like Kingslanding around people like Cersei Lannister and Petyr Baelish without picking up a few tricks. As awful as they were I learned much from them.” 

_ And now I’m learning from a woman who titles herself the Evil Queen. _

Daenerys chuckled softly. “I never had those kinds of educators. I don’t know whether to be grateful for that or not. No… my educator was my brother, and those who would lie to our faces, about how the small folk were drinking secret roasts to our health and sowing dragon banners.”

“The low born don’t care whose sigil their lord carries so long as they treat them well,” Sansa told her. “The Starks… My family has always treated our people well, that is why they fight for us, that is why they wanted Robb and Jon as their kings. The Northmen chose my ancestors to lead them thousands of years ago when the night was darkest, Torren Stark chose to kneel rather than lose a single Northmen life and my father… It was said a maid could walk down the road in naught but her name-day suit without fear of being raped or robbed.”

Daenerys wore a strange, sad expression. “Ned Stark was a good man. He turned his back on the Usurper when Robert cheered the death of Rheagars children, he fought to save my life and to keep Robert from going after my brother Viserys.” A deep breath and then, “my father, however, was not a good man. By any measure of the word.” Sansa didn’t argue. “He hurt your family, he hurt my kingdom, he hurt my mother if Barristan Selmy was to be believed.”

The redhead said nothing and simply watched as Daenerys bowed her head before she looked up at Sansa, violet eyes pleading. “I am not my father. I will not hurt the North as he did, I will not hurt my kingdom as he did.”

Sansa remained stoic, impassive. “I do not doubt you would be a good Queen, Your Grace. Your followers treat you more like a God than a monarch, their loyalty to you is something to be admired. But my brother, my mother, thousands of Northmen all died for freedom, they bled and fought so that a Stark could rule the North. We will not bend to a southern ruler, not again.” 

“Your brother, your king, bent the knee. Jon vowed the North to me.”

Sansa didn’t so much as blink. “Monarchs can fall every day, their promises can be undone.”

“They can be,” Daenerys agreed without tearing her eyes from Sansa. “And Great Houses can be extinguished just as often. What you suggest is treason against your queen, and if you insist Jon is still your king then that is treason against him as well.”

“If I’m willing to commit treason against my brother for the North...” Sansa took a step closer until they were practically nose to nose. “What do you think I’m willing to do against a woman I don’t trust?” 

“Not as much as what I’m willing to do to a woman who vows to take away my birthright,” she snarled.

Sansa scoffed. “Your birthright? You were eighth born to a mad man whose cruelty lost your family their throne. Your birthright was to be forgotten in the history books as an insignificant branch on your family tree.”

“Yet here I stand. Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons!”

“Cersei Lannister is Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. You stand here a world away with no allies from the country you wish to rule and no home to call your own. Robb and my mother sacrificed their lives for our independence. Jon sacrificed his kingdom and the respect of his Bannermen for the North’s people. When have you  **_ever_ ** sacrificed something for something other than yourself?!”

**_!SLAP!_ **

Sansa clutched her reddened cheek, icy blue eyes wide and jaw unhinged as she stared at Daenerys. Her violet eyes were full of tears and her whole body trembled in rage. When she spoke her voice shook and was heavy and thick with fury and grief. “My son. I sacrificed my  **_son_ ** , my flesh and blood son. Rhaego was born a deformed corpse because I tried to buy ma shieraki anni life… and I failed.”

The wolf stood there frozen while the dragon turned on the heel of her boot and stormed away, tears streaming down her face and staining the fire in her gown.

**_REGINA_ **

“M’lady.”

Regina turned, wine glass in hand, and for a moment her breath caught in her throat. Robin was handsome. Quite handsome (for a thief.) He wore a green leather metal studded tunic with white peasant sleeves, bottoms made of brown leather, knee high leather boots, and a green woolen cape with a thick black and brown leather belt. It made her remember just how much she preferred the way the men dressed in this realm then in Storybrooke. 

Regina recovered quickly and raised her glass in acknowledgment. “Thief,” she all but purred. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Quite. It's almost as grand as the balls my manor used to throw.”

She scoffed. “You had a manor?”

“I did, and a handful of titles as well. Lord of Locksley and all its surrounding lands and holdings.” 

“Impressive. So why didn’t you stay a Lord?”

“The prospect of living life as a dirty homeless hoodlum was just too appealing to turn down, M’lady.” Regina rolled her eyes but the corner of her lips tugged up as she did. “Our guests seem to be having fun,” Robin mused after watching the group for a moment.

“Well when your country has been at civil war the past ten years and you’ve been fighting ice zombies I would assume any opportunity to forget your life for a moment you’d jump on it. I for one never enjoyed these sort of things,” she muttered into her glass.

“Oh I don’t know.” Robin grabbed hold off her drink and swallowed the rest of it before he bowed and offered his hand. The Queen raised a brow but nevertheless took hold of his hand and allowed him to steer her onto the dance floor. His hand was hard and calloused and strong but as gentle as a soft wind. “I think it’s all rather romantic. Little John and I, we once snuck into a royal masquerade party.”

“Did you clean out the poor royals who lived there?” she asked.

He smiled, and it was warm and sweet and almost reminded her of Daniel. “Close. John ransacked the castle while I stayed on the main floor and danced.”

Regina laughed as they twirled round and round, their movements flowing with a dazzling grace she never would have expected from the thief. “Of course you did. What, were you afraid of getting caught?”

Robin dipped his queen low. His grip was strong though, and not even for a second did she fear that he would drop her. Blue eyes met brown and his voice was low and almost sultry. “I’ve never been afraid of anything, M’lady.” He was so close she could smell the pleasant forest scent and her eyes widened when she swore he looked at her lips but instead of leaning down he simply straightened her out and continued their slow dance. “But no, the reason I stayed downstairs was I saw this young woman just as I was about to head upstairs. She was standing alone in the corner, ignored by whoever she had brought her and the rest of the guests wearing this baby-blue dress with the saddest brown eyes I had ever seen hidden behind a pale blue mask. I couldn’t leave without asking a dance from her and the way her face just glowed when someone laid her just the littlest amount of attention...” An easy smile made its way to his handsome face. “We danced for half the night until John told me we had to leave.”

Regina swallowed hard as Robin and she moved step by step in perfect sync and harmony. “This masquerade.” Her voice shook, absolutely unbecoming for a queen but she pushed through it. “Where was it?”

“It was…” Robin chuckled. “It was yours and Leopold's castle actually.”

“And you… you wore a similar outfit as you’re wearing now with a green mask with a very large brown feather?” Robin's movements stilled. “And this woman begged you not to ask any questions, because-.”

“She didn’t want to talk about who she was and just wanted to forget who she was for a while,” he answered with a mutter. Robin’s blue eyes, the same blue eyes she gazed into that whole night, the same blue eyes belonging to the one man who asked a dance for her, who had shown her the first and only kindness she has since age married the king, widened and his jaw dropped. “It was you.”

Regina couldn’t help but smile, the same as she did all those years ago. “It was.”

“I… danced with the queen, and didn’t even know it.”

“You did.” Her voice grew soft and she spoke with a tone she hadn’t used in years, since before they added ‘evil’ to her name. “You made every single ball and masquerade tolerable. Leopold ignored me as did all the rest of his Lords but I always told myself that there was one man out there who would ask a dance of me.”

Robin smiled a tender guileless smile and began to softly sway her to the music. “You know I always wondered what became of that girl.”

“I heard she had a few issues,” Regina said and Robin laughed.

“Just a few. You know we smuggled half your wine cellar out that night.”

“Oh I’m aware. Half our wine along with a quarter of my jewelry, Snow’s diamond bracelets, nearly all of my husband's rings and a chestful of gold.”

“We were able to feed two villages for three moons.”

“And the wine?”

“Most of it was donated along with the gold.”

“Most?”

Robin shrugged, his blue eyes lighting up with amusement. “You can’t begrudge the men a bit of spoils for a job well done. A tad too much spoils in my case, but spoils nonetheless. That’s the night I let Friar Tuck tattoo me.”

Regina laughed loudly and Robin beamed as if it was the sweetest sound in the world. “You got a drunk tattoo from a priest?” 

Smiling, Robin pulled up his sleeve. He explained that it was a symbolic message, a way to show his support for King Richard, the TRUE king, rather than his pretender brother. But Regina didn’t hear him. She didn’t hear the music, she didn’t hear the laughs or chatting or anything else. She heard nothing but the voice of a fairy from years and years ago.

_ There he is. The guy with the lion tattoo.  _

“Is something wrong?” Robin asked as Regina stared at the lion tattoo on his forearm, eyes wide and chin trembling.

Without a word she turned and fled, ignoring when he shouted out her name. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#
> 
> #BlackLivesMatter ✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿


	9. Daenerys/Brienne

Daenerys wiped furiously at her violet eyes as she stomped through the vast halls. She hated Sansa. She hated her emotionless porcelain face, she hated her pale blue eyes, she hated her ancient keep, she hated her frozen country… 

She had gone to Sansa with the intention of politeness and gentility, to let the wolf understand she was not out to destroy their way of life or anything else. They were at a party, they were both in good moods, Daenerys thought it was the best chance to speak to her without it getting too heated. But then Sansa insulted her, she refused to concede, she brought forth images of the son she never held, the boy who never suckled at her breast, the prince who would have conquered the world had she not trusted a witch. That had woken the dragon and it was only because she knew it would cause a civil war that Daenerys didn’t throw the redhead from the balcony.

Aegon and most of his seed left the North well enough alone. Daenerys planned to do the same so long as they didn’t rebel against the crown and their taxes arrived on time. Many of the dragons didn’t so much as visit the North apart from their initial tour of their kingdom, Daenerys had no intentions to do otherwise. But now?

**I will burn it down. I will destroy every keep and city in the North left standing and I will force Sansa to bear witness to it all then choke her in the ashes of Winterfell itself.**

_Don’t!_ _You are not here to be queen of the ashes! You will not burn half your country to the ground or let your people be slaughtered by the dead just because you were disrespected by a child!_

Daenerys took a shaky breath. She was not Aerys or Meagor or Aegon IV. She may be the Dragon Queen but she was also Mysha. She WOULD be both, she had no choice but to be both. 

Mind still wondering and battling, Daenerys turned the corner, barely noticing where she was going when she turned a corner and ran smack dab into Maleficent. Or, to be more specific, Maleficent and Yara, both in a state of undress with the Ironborn on her knees and one of the dragons pale legs over her shoulder while she lapped hungrily at what was between them.

The Dothraki believed in making love under the stars before the Khalasar with zero shame so the act itself isn’t what turned Daenerys’ skin crimson, but the way Maleficent turned and locked her pale blue, almost grey eyes, on the queen as the kraken's daughter feasted away without a care, moaning as she did. 

Maleficent pushed Yara away with a ‘down girl’, keeping Daenerys rooted to the spot with her gaze alone.

Yara finally noticed who was standing there and she didn’t look ashamed either, rather just wiped the glistening juices from her lips and smirked at her queen. “ _ Two _ dragons? This night just keeps getting better.”

“Wait for me in my bedroom,” Maleficent said without turning away from Daenerys. “If I show up and you’re in any position other than sprawled out on my bed there will be consequences.”

“But I don’t know where your-.”

With a wave of her hand and a poof of dark purple smoke, Yara vanished. Daenerys' heart jumped into her throat and it was only by the grace of all seven Gods that she didn’t cry out. In the length of half a heartbeat and with a shimmer of purple light she was suddenly dressed in her black leathers and standing not even an inch from the Queen. Daenerys took a hasty step backwards, eyes wide and chest heaving. 

That same unexplainable pull, that same inexplicable draw to Maleficent was as strong now as when they first met in her castle. Daenerys feared the woman standing before her, she worshipped her, she was in awe of her.

Her followers thought of Daenerys as a God and she always dissuaded them. Even when Missandei told the former slaves they owed Daenerys their freedom she l put a stop to it. Daenerys was no God, but she HAD walked fourth from the fire with three dragons, she was the seed of Aegon Targaryen, the blood of Old Valyria, the mother of Dragons. She may not have been a God, but she thought of herself as someone powerful, as someone worthy of the love and loyalty, the fear and respect of her followers, as someone whose magic was unlike any man living. 

But when she saw a woman transform from a human into a dragon, a REAL dragon, Daenerys knew her magic and her power was nothing but a matchstick being compared to a Dornish sun. Her family was a lie, her legacy a lie.

But even still; she was Khaleesi, she was Mysha, the Breaker of Chains, the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and as much as she was in awe of this woman, she would not show that she was intimidated. “What do you want?” Daenerys asked, keeping her voice as steady as she could.

“My friend is the one throwing the party,” she answered in her sharp but somehow almost bored sounding voice. “I was invited. Then the fish girl and I got to talking.” She smirked and licked her cherry red lips. “Things happened.”

“I meant what do you want with me. I told you I was sorry. A thousand times I’m sorry for what my family did to your species. I would hope you would know better than to judge one person for their ancestors' abominations.”

Maleficent chuckled, deep and low and cold. “You must not know my story very well.” The tall blonde took a step closer and Daenerys took a step back but Maleficent reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her closer, not even an inch away from her.

“Let me go,” Daenerys commanded, yanking away to no avail. “I said let me  _ go _ !” Maleficent still didn’t listen so Daenerys summoned every ounce of strength she had and slapped the woman across the face, the loud  **!SMACK** ! echoing in the corridor. 

Maleficent barely even flinched. Daenerys swallowed her fear and just as she was about to cry out to help the corner of the tall woman’s lips curled into a sneer and she glanced down at where she was gripping her arm. “My little one was right… you are different.” 

Daenerys followed her gaze and saw that the hand grabbing her was red hot, what would have melted away the flesh of anyone else. She felt the dagger sharp nails digging into her flesh but nothing else. No pain, no heat, nothing but the warm tingling that she felt when she slipped into a bath that her handmaids claimed were far too hot.

“Your kind, Valeryans, they thought themselves fireproof.” Amusement and bitterness both danced in her eyes. “For a time. They thought because they could control us they could control our fire. We proved them wrong time and time again.”

“I don’t know why I’m like this,” Daenerys said honestly. “I’ve never understood it, I just-.”

“You thought you were special. A God amongst men.” 

“I am no God. I am a queen.”

“You are lying to yourself. Magic has touched you, Daenerys Targaryen. My people's magic has, for some reason or another, blessed you.”

“You’re... you’re not angry?”

“You’re still a Targaryen. Your family has much to answer for.  _ You _ have much to answer for.”

“I told you I didn’t-.”

“You used your ‘children’ for human war,” she interrupted with words sharper than Valyrian steel. “His scars are your doing. His death will be your doing as well.”

Daenerys thought of Viserion; a blue eyed corpse, a slave to the Nightking. She thought of Drogon and his beautiful black body littered with scars from scorpions and spears, of Rhaegal, her smallest child, left behind to fight the dead with only a few pats on his smoking snout as a goodbye. She already lost Rhaego and Viserion and now she was putting her last two in danger as well, all for an iron chair and a heavy crown.

Tears rushed to her eyes and she bowed her head. “You’re right,” she whispered, words soaked in grief and despair. “I just… I need them. I need my dragons, they’re my children.”

“You did not lay their eggs.”

“I carried them into the fire. I made the sacrifices. A life for a life.”

Confusion flickered in her pale blue eyes. “You don’t need a sacrifice to hatch dragons.”

“I did. My son, my husband and their murderer. Three lives for three dragons. Their eggs turned to stone hundreds of years ago but when I carried them into the flames of my husband's pyre I watched the heat crack and split their shells and I felt as they suckled the milk from my breasts.”

It lasted a moment, only a single moment, but fear flashed in the tall woman’s pale blue eyes, her expression one of awe and astonishment. 

“What  **_are_ ** you?”

A thousand answers came to mind. The Mother of Dragons, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, Rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Lady and Protector of the Realm, the Dragon's Daughter or any of the numerous others. But for once Daenerys was at a loss of words.

Just as suddenly as she vanished Yara, in a shimmer of purple Maleficent disappeared leaving the queen alone and bewildered. After a long moment to collect her thoughts, Daenerys headed down the long hallway not to her chambers, but the third biggest room the people of Misthaven offered them.

Shaking, she raised her hand and knocked on the door hoping that the person she wanted to see more than anything had also left the feast early. She was in luck.

“My Queen,” Jon breathed, gray Stark eyes wide with shock. “What's wrong? Are you alright?”

A question no one tended to ask her. She was Khaleesi, she was Mysha, she was the Dragon Queen. She wasn’t allowed to feel, she wasn’t allowed to be bothered okay’, she was only allowed to comfort, she was only allowed to stay strong, she was only allowed to let loose her temper in righteous fury. 

All at once everything was just too much for her. Maleficent's hateful truth and Sansa cruel lies and the wars back home, both against the dead and the lions, Viserion and Rhaego, her beautiful boys taken far too early and Jon... 

A tear spilled down her face and another before and soon she couldn’t stop them. Without warning she wrapped her arms around the strong sullen faced man. He froze, arms stiff at his side.

“Please,” the queen begged, clinging to him tighter. “Please don’t make me command you.”

Jon wrapped her in a tight embrace, stroking the elaborate braids. 

Daenerys didn’t care if it was past lovers comforting each other, as a nephew comforting his aunt, as a simple man confronted with an emotional woman, she just cared that he was holding her as tight as he could, and when he whispered in that strong serious Northern accent that everything would be okay, despite not knowing any of what was happening or why she was here crying, she found that for once, she had no choice but to believe him…

* * *

Kissing, touching, moaning, gasping as Brienne begged Jaime to please please please hurry as the three hands tore at their clothes, begging him for more more more as he pumped between her long legs, claiming her maidenhood for his own.

It was all a blur but somehow she remembered every detail. Every stroke, every kiss, the way he purred her name and the way she whimpered his were clear as a bell. The way they had all but raced back to her chambers trying not to be seen, the sound of him licking and slurping and kissing her soaking wet cunt, the weight of him on top of her, the feel of his hands and mouth on the breasts he told her over and over were perfect, a way to make up for the crude comments from their first weeks together, was a memory she knew she would never forget.

Afterwards she knew she should have been embarrassed but she couldn’t find it in her to care much for traditions. It didn’t matter that Brienne gave away what was meant to be her Lord Husbands, that she allowed a man to touch her and kiss her and fuck her, the word itself still managed to bring a blush to her face, before marriage and what was worse, according to her old septa, was she had  _ enjoyed  _ it. Immensely. 

Sex wasn’t for fun, Septa Roelle used to tell Brienne, especially not for ugly girls like her. If her husband managed to even get it up Brienne would be face down, all the lights out, a few quick painful thrusts and that would be that. Her husband would do it as many times as it took to put a son in her and after she gave him an heir and a spare she could expect to never be touched again.

But Jaime… he left every candle burning, he kept his eyes on her as he buried his face between her legs, he didn’t take her like a hound would take a bitch but face to face, lovingly, caringly, wanting her, NEEDING her it appeared at one point as he begged for her gentle touch and her wet kisses. Then when he was done with what she thought would be a one time lapse of judgement, fifteen minutes later his hand was cupping her breast and he was kissing her again, his cock already hard and pressing against her thigh where his seed still lingered on the pale flesh.

It was nothing the way she pictured her first time would be, with a man who barely tolerated her ugliness all for the title of Lord of Tarth. It was worlds and universes and galaxies better, done with a man she admired who knew her inside and out, who cared for her, who made sure her pleasure wasn’t an afterthought but what seemed to be his sole purpose in life.

Sunlight streamed through the curtains and landed on her face the morning after. A lazy smile shone on her lips as her blue eyes fluttered open. She reached for Jaime, who had fallen asleep holding her and gently stroking her pale yellow hair, but her arm just kept reaching on, finding nothing but a small slip of paper.

Brow furrowed, she quickly sat up and clenched the letter in her fist, blankets falling to reveal two breasts littered with his hand prints and tiny bruises caused by his lips and teeth. 

_ Brienne _ , the untidy scrawl read,  _ meet me in the stables. I have a surprise for you. Jaime.  _

Her smile was back. Biting back a girlish grin she quickly climbed out of bed and hurried over to the wash wash basin and cleaned away the nights activities from the night before. She chose her finest riding breeches and a quartered pink and blue leather jerkin with iron studs painted white and yellow that made up the crescent moon and sun of her House. After she had slicked her hair back and secured Oathkeeper to her waist she hurried out of her room, told Podrick where she would be incase Lady Sansa had need of her, and made her way to the stables. 

Grinning like a fool by the time she reached them, she paused only when she heard Jaime speaking to someone, voice low and distressed, clearly not wishing to be overheard. She gnawed at her lip, deciding to walk away and wait for him to be finished with his conversation when another voice rang out, louder and taking less care of being heard by anyone.

“I thought you said you were fond of her,” Lady Sansa snapped and Brienne's curiosity peaked.

”I am,” Jaime protested. “I’m more than fond of Brienne. I think… I think I might be in love with her.”

Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest, her lungs were close to bursting and tears of joy filled her eyes. Before she could even start to remotely work out any of the thousand thoughts and emotions swirling through her, Jaimes next words sent any happiness, any joy crashing to the ground and incinerating. 

“She’s just so…. Ugly.”

Brienne had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep the sob form ripping past her lips. It wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last time she heard that, nor was it the first time she heard it from Jaime, but this was different. She thought last night had finally proved that there was a man out there who could look past her physical issues, that he could want a body as unfortunately unattractive as hers.

She was wrong.

“I know she is,” Sansa agreed and her heart crumbled even further. Her Lady and her mother had been the only people never to comment on her size or her looks, who stood up in defense of her when others would insult her. “I can barely stand looking at her some days if not for my courtesy. But you can’t sleep with a woman then leave her.”

“Of course I won’t leave her!” Jaime argued, voice raising. “Especially not after last night! But it took everything in me not to take her from behind, to not just close my eyes and picture Cer- ...Someone else in her stead,” he muttered. Brienne didn’t need to wonder who he would have desired rather than her. “And when I think of marriage; what kind of father would I be if I cursed my future children with her looks?” He sounded so defeated, so desperate, so utterly pained and heartbroken. “If I could just…. if she was  _ her _ , in a different body, if she wasn’t almost physically revolting, Brienne would be my ideal woman. She would be my dream, she would be everything I ever wanted.”

Tears were now streaming down Brienne's face at a rapid pace and it was taking everything in her not to outwardly sob. She had to get away from there, and fast or risk them finding out she heard what they said about her.

She hurried away before either could utter another syllable, collapsing against a tree and taking hard ragged breaths.

Ugly. Jaime thought she was ugly. Last night had been a lie, a cruel joke. She thought he enjoyed himself as much as she had, she thought the look in his eyes as he took her was love and lust, not revulsion and regret but she was wrong. Jaime thought of her as a horrible monstrous beast and what was worse was she knew,  _ she knew _ , he didn’t want to feel this way.

She could hear the agony in his voice when he insulted her, she heard the way that every syllable was being forced out of him, she heard the way he hated himself for his cruel words. He didn’t want to think Brienne was ugly, he didn’t want to have to picture his twin when he laid with her, he wanted to find the woman he loved attractive, it wasn’t his fault. Not really, anyway. Jaime had no more control over what he found attractive anymore then Brienne could control-.

Her hand froze as she went to wipe her tears away. She swallowed the painful lump in her throat and her broken heart began pounding against her ribs. She stormed towards the castle, pushing aside any fear or self-righteousness away and silencing the screaming voice that was telling her not to do this. Brienne made her way back into her chambers and dived under her bed, pulling out the book Zelena gave her, a heavy leather bound tome with strange markings and stranger drawing covering it. Afterwards she went up to one of the guards, a small man with dirty brown hair and brown eyes clad black armor.

“Where does the queen keep her spell book?” she demanded, hand clutching the hilt of Oathkeeper.

Turns out it was hidden deep in the center of the castle, the highest room in the tallest tower. An aura of purple shimmering light surrounded the book, an exact copy of the fake Brienne held in her hands but she could feel the difference, she could sense the powerful magic exuding from it in waves

_ Turn back _ , she screamed at herself as she slowly approached the spell book, remembering Regina's words that this would only bring destruction.  _ Turn back, you aren’t a thief! _

But Jaime’s words were even louder. Ugly, he called her, revolting, he was terrified if she gave him children that they would look like her. She loved him, and he loved her, he admitted it to Lady Sansa. He pushed a boy out of a tower for Cersei, but Brienne couldn’t steal a simple book to make the man who loved her happy? 

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Brienne, with a trembling hand, reached through the purple shimmer. Immediately a thousand knives were cutting into her arm all at once and red hot flames licked at her flesh. She had to bite her lip to keep from screaming as she grabbed hold of the book and yanked it free of its prison, replacing it with the copy in a hasty toss . She yanked back her hand and fell to the ground, cradling her arm to her chest. She expected her hand to be covered in blood or scars but there was nothing physically wrong with it, and the pain faded in time. 

Zelena didn’t mention that part…

After the pain was gone, Brienne stashed the book in the messenger bag she brought with her and hurried away from the room with the now fake spell book. As she made her way down to the courtyard Podrick called out to her but she ignored him, giving her squire not so much as a friendly nod. By the time she got to where she met Zelena the first time, her heart was pounding so fast it was painful, and her whole body shook violently, none so more then her hands as she dug out the tiny scrap of paper the red headed woman gave her that first day.

_ You can still turn back,  _ her voice, her fathers, even Jaime’s told her as she glanced down at the tidy writing in green ink.  _ You don’t need to do this. _

But once again, she pushed it down, this time almost violently. And with a deep breath and with a tremble in her voice, she read the odd sounding name out loud. “Rumplestiltskin.”

“At your service, Dearie,” an oddly high pitched strangely accented amused voice came suddenly from behind her.

Brienne whipped around, unable to stop her gasp of shock as the man who stood before her. He was short, about the same height as Jon Snow, and small in stature with a sickening golden hue to his skin that sparkled like diamonds in the early morning light. His eyes were a dark golden brown and his hair was tight crisp brown curls. 

His teeth were rotted, the same color as his skin, and his wormy lips were curled into a dangerous sneer, far more dangerous then she had ever seen on Cersei. 

She tried to find a single word to say to this… thing, wondering if she should draw her sword on this creature, but he spoke first, relieving her of the pressure.

Rumple grimaced as he looked at the tall knight. “Oh my…” he sneered in his queer voice. “You are an ugly one aren’t you? And they call  _ me _ a beast.”

For the first time in her life Brienne was able to think to herself,  _ not as ugly as you _ , but she kept that particular thought to herself. 

“Do you have what I want?” he asked, holding out his hand in a rather elaborate flourish. Brienne swallowed hard and nodded, grabbing the book from her messenger bag. But when he reached out to take it Brienne clutched it to her chest.

“Don’t play games with me, Dearie,” he practically growled. “Give me the book so I can give you what you want.”

Brienne willed her voice not to tremble, to sound confident and in control. To sound like a knight. “Zelena, she said you were in the habit of making deals.”

The fury in his eyes melted as quick as it had come, replaced by a glee that felt more perverted than anything. “A deal? You wish to make a deal?”

“Yes.”

He giggled, a strange high pitched sound that sent a shudder of fear throughout Brienne. “Well then, dearie… Best name your terms.”

“This book, it can’t be used to hurt anyone. The spells she cast can’t be anything that would hurt or kill  _ anyone _ , especially Regina.”

He rubbed his chin for a moment before he gave a curt nod. “Done. The spells cast won’t hurt anyone.”

“And I-... I want to be beautiful.” The words came quick, and her heart raced just at the prospect. “I want to be more beautiful than-... than Cersei Lannister, she’s-.”

“Yes yes I know who she is!” he barked and Brienne took a hasty step back. Rumple was unarmed, short, small, but there was something about the imp that made him even more dangerous than even Locke or anyone else she had ever encountered. “I promise you, Dearie.” He reached up and laid his hands on her face in an oddly sexual manner. She quickly pulled away from him. “You will be, undoubtedly, the most beautiful woman in all the realms, and then you and your knight can live happily ever after,” he added with another florash and high pitched giggle.

She couldn’t help the grin from spreading as wide as it had when Jaime knighted her nor the way her eyes lit up. The wide toothy smile that Jaime told her was magnificent Rumple merely grimaced at. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix that too.”

With one final moment of hesitation, Brienne took a deep breath and handed over the book. Rumple grabbed hold of it, letting loose his high pitched giggle again. “Thank you, Dearie.” He turned to leave and for a moment panic choked Brienne before he turned around. “Oh right.”

The imp snapped his golden fingers, Brienne blinked and all of a sudden she felt shorter, smaller, lighter but somehow heavier at once. In a poof of black smoke a full length looking glass appeared in front of her and it took all of her strength to remain standing and not collapse there in the woods.

Brienne was beautiful. Far beyond beautiful, she was ethereal. What had previously been a thick androgynous face were now sharp and stunning. Her teeth were as straight as a line and her lips had shrunk and were no longer just plump but they were lucious and shined red. Her body too had changed, she was shorter, but not short, only an inch or so shorter then Lady Sansa and her legs were still long although her feet (and hands, which now had long painted nails and were free of any callouses) were much smaller. Her waist was tinier too, and well defined, while her hips and breasts and other womanly curves that hadn’t existed before were now on very full display. The dress she now wore, a tight pink and blue silk gown with suns and crescent moons, accented her new curves. She was stunning to behold, the kind of face and figure men would go to war with. Far beyond the beauty of Cersei or Sansa, even Daenerys. Her hair had darkened a shade and rather than a short dry squirrels nest, it was now long thick waves of blonde that flowed down her back. 

Her eyes though… she thought they might have stayed the same. Everyone told her she had stunning eyes, they were the only part of her that was truly beautiful. However, instead of the deep electric blue that rivaled the brightest sapphires, they were now a plain dull pale grey. 

But she didn’t focus too much on that for long. She was gorgeous, she was feminine, and Jaime would be happy.  **_Brienne_ ** would be happy. She turned towards Rumple and grinned, a beautiful bright smile that no man would ever tell her not to show. 

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she told Rumple, emotions catching in her throat.

He patted the book and grinned that dangerous grin again. “You’ve already done enough, Dearie.”

Her smile faltered somewhat but she merely wished him well and turned back to the mirror, admiring her beauty. She ran her hands through her hair and over her new body when she finally realized that Oathkeeper was no longer buckled around her waist . “Oathkeeper… Oathkeeper, where is my sword?” she asked, turning around quickly to see if it had fallen off. Her heart jumped into her throat when she didn’t see the sight of steel or scabbard. “Where is it?”

“Oh that old thing?” he said rather flippantly. “I got rid of it.” 

No. No no no, Jaime gave that to her, it was hers, it would  _ always  _ be hers. She used it to find his honor, she used it to save Sansa, Podrick, Jaime… she couldn’t have lost it, not now not ever. 

Tears rushed to her eyes. “Please,” Brienne begged him, voice thick with grief. “Please give it back, please.”

“Why? It’s not like you’ll have any use for it anymore.”

“Give me back my sword!” 

He pursed his lips for a moment before in a poof of purple smoke sword and scabbard was in his hands. “I’ll give it back to you,” he told her, dangling the scabbard by the belt as if taunting her. “For a price.”

Her heart sank but she knew whatever this man wanted or needed she would give him. That was his honor. “What do you want?”

Rumplestiltskin grinned dangerously, leaning in so close she could feel his sour breath on her lips. “A favor,” he purred.

“A… a favor?”

“You get the sword of  _ twu luv _ back,” he said in a mocking high pitched voice, clasping his hands together and batting his eyelashes to the heavens. “But you,  _ Dearie _ , would owe me a favor,” he growled.

Brienne swallowed hard. This wouldn’t end good, she knew it wouldn’t. She would end up in an even worse position then she was now but this was Oathkeeper. So with a curt nod, she told him; “deal.”

He giggled and in a snap of his fingers the sword and scabbard disappeared. “It’s back in your chambers safe and sound right besides the armor you’ll never be able to use again either,” he assured her. Rumple grinned at her . “It’d be too heavy for you to carry back to the castle.” In a puff of black smoke Rumple and the mirror disappeared, leaving Brienne very much alone in the woods.

Please Review!


	10. Jaime

Jaime woke up with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. 

He has fallen asleep with his arms wrapped firmly around the blonde woman still fast asleep using his chest as a pillow. He stroked the pale blonde hair that fanned out like a halo.

Even now he couldn’t believe he had the honor of taking her maidenhood, of being the first man to kiss her, to touch her, to taste her...

It had been different from Cersei. Very different. Him and Cersei used to fuck. Hard. They would both walk away with bruises and hand prints and scratches so deep they drew blood, their twisted love indistinguishable from their fiery hate. With Brienne though it was soft, gentle, she whimpered and clung to him as he kissed her, and when he was a little rough with her as he nipped at her thigh before he feasted on the untouched treasure between her legs or groped and suckled at her magnificent breasts, there had been a tenderness he never used with his twin and Cersei never used with him. 

What was best though, what had been the absolute best, was she didn’t ask anything for him before, during or after. It hasn’t been a way to manipulate him or to convince him to do something for her. Brienne wanted to be with him, she wanted him to lay with her for the simple fact she wanted him, she cared about him and judging by the softness in her eyes when she looked at him she may have even loved him; the same as he did her.

He kissed her soft shoulder, smiling as warm as a summer morning when she stirred and clung to him tighter but stayed fast asleep, before he, slowly and carefully as to not wake her, untangled himself from her.

After he relieved himself in her chamber pot he pulled on his breeches from last night and poured himself a glass of wine from the half empty bottle on her desk. He sat down, unable and unwilling to turn his gaze away from the sleeping woman. She was beautiful. Not in the traditional sense, and they both knew they would be hard pressed to find anyone else who shared his opinion on the matter, but to Jaime she was. Her plump lips were made for him to kiss, her small breasts fit perfectly in his hands and he could have spent the rest of his life between her obscenely long legs and died a happy man. The way her muscles, muscles no other Highborn woman had, flexed under her soft pale skin as she arched her back as he pushed into her sent him into a tizzy and her pale blonde hair had been so much softer then he ever could have imagined when he ran his hand through it for the first time. Then gazing into

those big beautiful blue eyes that the Maiden Herself would be envious of and seeing the soft vulnerability, the trust, the want she held in them when he looked into them felt as close to heaven as a living man could feel.

The only thing they wanted to do that he hadn’t done was spill his seed inside her but they both knew that was a bad idea. Neither was sure if anyone had thought to bring moon tea on the extradition and they were unsure if this land had any manners to prevent a woman's womb from quickening. But even still the thought alone of seeing her heavy with child,  _ his _ child, made his cock stir with want. Brienne would give him strong strapping trueborn sons with her strength and honor then a host of girls with beautiful blue eyes and her fierce determination, and they would all call Jaime ‘father’ and each and every one would be named Lannister.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He would put a cloak of gold and crimson around her shoulders well before he put a child in her. He already took her maidenhood before marriage, he would not further shame her with a bastard and for once; Jaime would gift the world a trueborn child who wasn’t made with hate and secrets but with love and adoration.

His stomach grumbling interrupted his musings. The thought of Brienne waking up to a full breakfast before they, hopefully, continued the activities from the previous night, was too good of an opportunity to pass up so he wrote her a quick note telling her he was getting them breakfast with a promise he would be right back incase she woke up, pulled on a plain white shirt of hers and his boots and with a soft kiss on her brow he left the room.

The kitchens were slow moving that morning, what with the extra guests who stayed over at the castle but eventually Davos, who was helping Granny and Ruby in the kitchen and who gave him an amused look when Jaime told him he needed breakfast for two, fixed him a tray piled high with crisp bacon, crusty bread hot from the oven, fresh fruit, and two bowls of sweet cream and berries with a fresh bottle of peach summer wine. 

Jaime has difficulty maneuvering up the stairs with the heavy tray but thankfully he ran into a rather melancholy looking Sansa who assisted him with the tray. When Jaime asked her what was the matter the young wolf just shook her head so he let it drop but when she inquired him about large amount of food, as well as the fact that their rooms weren’t on the landing he told her he was going to, Jaime just smirked as he stopped in front of Brienne's chambers .

Sansa narrowed her icy blue eyes at the lion and told him in a no nonsense voice, “if you hurt her-.”

“I’ll take a dagger to my wrists before I do,” he promised.

“Mind you do,” she said sharply. “Lady Brienne means the world to me. She’s as strong as the Smith on the outside but her heart is as soft as any Maid and I don’t want to see it broken. She deserved better than that.”

“I know. But you aren’t the only one who cares about her, Stark. I think…” He allowed himself a soft smile. “I think I might be in love with her.”

He saw the shock breakthrough that stoic unyielding mask she wore. “You… you are?”

“I am. Now as much as I appreciate your help carrying up our breakfast and as much as I have enjoyed our little conversation,” his smile could have cut glass it was so sharp, “I need to get back to Brienne.”

The wolf must have seen the truth in his eyes because rather than respond she simply gave him a curt nod, handed off the tray to him and opened the door for him. 

“She’s gone,” Jaime said, furrowing her brow in confusion as he and Sansa walked in. “I left a note telling her I would be right back.”

“She probably went to see where you were going then,” Sansa mused. “I’ll go see Podrick, see if he knows where she went and I’ll make sure to tell him to tell her you’re looking for her.”

“Thank you, Lady Stark.”

She just gave him a curt nod before he turned on the heel of her boot and walked out of the room. Jaime, mostly confident that she would return soon after realizing he already had their breakfast, set up the two meals on the tiny table in her chambers. He poured them both a glass of the wine, stripped himself of the shirt, lowered his trousers down low enough so that nearly every inch of his V was showing, and positioned the chair and posed himself so that a lounging carnal half dressed lion would be the first thing she saw when she opened the door. Brienne would grow slick and wet the moment she saw him and Jaime would have a delectable pre-breakfast meal between her legs before she even made it to the table.

One minute passed. Then another. Then five, then ten, nearly a half an hour passed and no sign of her. By then any sexualized pose he put himself in had been replaced by a worried pace, his pants firmly pulled back into their rightful spot around his hips, the breakfast he procured long since cold. 

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, Jaime could feel it in his heart, his body, his mind, his soul… Brienne should have been back by now, it wasn’t like her to just disappear. Her sword was hung up beside her armor, although Jaime could have sworn it wasn’t there earlier, so he knew she could have gone far but what was taking so long for her to come back? Just as he was about to go out and search he heard her voice call out his name.

“Gods, Brienne,” he sighed in relief as he turned towards her. “You nearly gave me a- oh.” Jaime’s face fell as instead of his knight he saw a ln unknown woman standing there beaming at him. “Apologies, I thought you were someone else.”

Joy lit up the woman’s pale face. “Jaime… Jaime it’s me,” the woman said as she walked into her room. 

He raised a golden brow at the boldness. Her gown and appearance suggested she was Highborn but even still. “I don’t recall inviting you into these chambers.”

“Jaime it’s me,” she said again. She took hold of his hands and he pulled away quickly. 

“Don’t touch me,” he said sharply.

“Jaime listen to me.”  _ Why was her voice so- _ “it’s Brienne.”

“I don’t have time for this,” he grumbled, in no mood for politeness or jokes. Jaime went to draw his dagger in hopes to intimidate this woman into leaving but she simply grabbed his hand again. 

“Jaime, it’s me!” she cried as he threw her off. “It’s Brienne! I- I made a deal with a warlock. He made me beautiful.”

He blinked. No. No, he was dreaming or this woman was lying but either way Brienne wouldn’t do this to herself. She wouldn’t change herself into this, admittedly gorgeous and provocative, woman, not the morning after he showed and proved to her that he wanted her and loved her as is. She hated magic, she distrusted it, magic killed her king. She wouldn’t use it on herself.

“You-.” She glanced around to make sure they were alone before she leaned in. “There’s wildfire under the streets of Kingslanding,” she told him in a hushed whisper. “You killed Aerys to prevent him from setting it off. You’re a hero and a good man, you just never told anyone but me.” 

His mind started racing, screaming at him that this was somehow a trick. “How-... how do you-?”

“You told me that the wolf has no right to judge the lion before you collapsed,” she continued. “I called you Kingslayer and that’s when you told me, ‘Jaime. My name is Jaime’. That’s the last time I ever insulted you with that moniker.”

Jaime took a hasty step back, chest heaving and eyes wide. “How do you know all that?” His voice trembled with both fear and adrenaline.

“You told me in the Harrenhal bath house. You climbed into the tub with me,” she muttered with a blush that rose to her ivory skin, casting her dull grey eyes to the floor. The woman took a deep breath and lifted her gaze to Jaime, meeting his head on. “That was the first time you told me you trusted me.”

The softness in her voice, the tenderness in her eyes, even if they were a different shade… “Brienne?” he breathed, still hardly able to believe what he was seeing. 

She smiled, not the beaming one that could have lit up a room but reserved and small, no different then a million others. “Yeah. It’s me.”

A whimper escaped his lips and he had to grip the table to keep from standing up. His head was spinning and his heart was pounding so hard he thought he might lose consciousness. Brienne cupped his face with soft uncalloused hands, untouched by a dagger hilt or a sword pommel.

“Hey. Hey it’s okay, I’m okay,” she told him quickly with another smile. “Everything’s fine, Jaime, I promise.”

He searched over her new face, all sharp edges and angles, a beauty through and through. “Why?” His voice shook with unfallen, unexplained tears. “Brienne, why would you do this to yourself?”

“If you had the chance to grow your hand back in the blink of an eye would you?” she argued. “If you could choose to be seen as a hero rather than the villain and all it took was the snap of someone’s fingers wouldn’t you do it?”

“I-... I would but-.”

“Then why are you chastising me for wanting to be beautiful? For letting you be with the most beautiful woman in the realms?”

_ I already was _ , he wanted to tell her but he knew she would have seen it as nothing more than a jest. 

“I wanted to be beautiful, like every other Highborn Lady in Westeros. Jaime it is  **_not_ ** fair that I have to look like a great lumbering  **_beast_ ** ,” she spat, every word dripping with envy and resentment, “while every other noble woman looks like Sansa or Cersei or Daenerys. My great grandmother was a Targaryen princess; why shouldn’t I be allowed to be as alluring as my ancestors were?”

Jaime ignored the news that the woman he loves was related to the family he loathed for now. “Brienne I’m not saying that, I just-.”

“I made sure the deal I made with the warlock wouldn’t backfire,” she interrupted again, and Jaime pursed his lips in annoyance. Brienne was never in the habit of doing that before. As a matter of fact he knew that to be one of her biggest annoyances and was the sole thing she told him she wished she could change about Lady Sansa. “I made so Zelena couldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Brienne,” he sighed. “I-... I don’t-.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she told him in a gentle whisper, interrupting him once more. She snaked her arms up around his neck and gazed up at him. It was odd, having to look down at her. It was even odder to look at her and see someone overwhelmingly breathtaking. Then when she pulled him down for a kiss, a guilt ate away at him as he stood there, frozen.

Her lips were velvety smooth and plump but they weren’t his knights, and, he realized with a sickening awareness, he may as well have been kissing Cersei. When she pressed her body against his he didn’t feel the strong hard earned muscles, he felt soft womanly curves. Her breasts were large, even bigger than his twins, and perfectly formed, but they wouldn’t have fit in one hand like her real ones had, nor would he have been able to fit it whole in his mouth, an accomplishment he realized he quite liked achieving last night.

“Please,” Brienne muttered against his lips when he hadn’t responded for a while. “Please, let me have this Jaime.”

He closed his eyes, waves of guilt and anguish crashing over him. He was being selfish. He was being unfair to her. She had a chance to be beautiful, to be treated like a true Highborn Lady by everyone, not just those who respected her, to not be sneered at and mocked. 

Jaime would have to try. For her. 

Besides, he told himself as he reached down and kissed her, he had suffered far worse punishments than making love to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Brienne groaned in his mouth as his tongue danced over hers and his hand explored her new body, starting at her buxom chest then traveling down, down, down to her now exceptionally tiny waist and finishing at her soft womanly hips. 

“Jaime,” she breathed, throwing her head back and exposing her long pale neck to an assault of kisses. “Gods Jaime…”

His cock stirred at her words. At least her voice was still the same. The way she moaned and gasped and lithed his name would still be music to his ears. The laces and fastenings keeping the dress closed came undone with ease and when she stepped out of it, Jaime took a step back and let his eyes wander over her. She flushed at the scrutinization but she held her head up high and watched him as he drank in her new form.

Her body was remarkable; perfectly proportioned, like she had been carved from the marble her island was so famous for. Even her thick blonde bush had shrank to just a single small strip of short well manicured yellow curls. Her nipples were as round as cherries, her nails were long and painted a deep sapphire blue, and everything about her was completely and utterly perfect, even more enchanting and breathtaking then Cersei’s body had been at the absolute peak of her beauty.

So why couldn’t he muster up half the excitement he had last night?

“Jaime.” Her soft small voice broke through and he shook the lingering thoughts away, remembering his earlier chastition. If this is what Brienne wanted to be, he would learn to accept it. “Are you okay?”

He forced his expression into one of lust and wanting and he walked back over to, buried his hand into her now long blonde hair and kissed her with as much hunger as he had when Brienne was actually Brienne. He kissed down her neck, her shoulder, her firm full breasts, her flat stomach without a hint of muscle tone and dropped to his knees. He did his best to hide his disappointment with her new legs as he nipped at her pale creamy thigh. On any other woman they would have been long and sinful but now that Jaime had Brienne’s real legs wrapped around his waist for half the night, these were just… not those.

But nevertheless he kissed and nipped at her hip and just as before his knight whimpered and buried her hands in his hair, gasping as he threw her leg over his shoulder and buried his face between her legs. He parted her lower lips as her upper cried out his name while he inhaled her scent and tasted her, but even that had changed. Last night the slick wetness had been real- a sweet and slightly sour creaminess he could have only described as ‘Brienne’. Now though she just tasted sweet.

Cloyingly, artificially sweet. 

He pushed it from his mind and started to lick and kiss and devour her clit. She gasped and moaned and whispered and pressed his head further into her and all the things she had done the previous night but this was different. Nearly all her strength was gone from her grip and what had been a fat pink treasure had shrunk to something small and meek. 

His tongue reached out and licked at that pink slit soaked with desire in wide flat caresses at first then hurried frenzy stripes with the tip of his tongue before he he began sucking and devouring and feasting on her wetness as best he could, fingers pushing and twisting inside her and soon enough his name was being screamed to the heavens. 

The other night the moment she tightened around his fingers and her soft creaminess flooded his mouth it was more than enough to make him drunk on her body and soul and there was something primitive in the way he knew he had been and would be the only one to taste her, to touch her, to fuck her. He kissed her afterwards, letting Brienne taste her honey soaked cunt and the way she moaned nearly had him spilling his seed before he even got his breeches off.

Now though? Now he was half hard and struggling with that. 

It didn’t feel right. No matter how hard he wanted to do this for her this wasn’t Brienne, this wasn’t his stubborn Wench he had been fascinated by since the moment he saw her, this wasn’t his enigma. This was just another pretty face, a  _ very _ pretty face, but even still she was no different then the hundreds of other women out there. 

Brienne pulled him to his feet and kissed him, moaning in his mouth and swiping her much shorter tongue across his. “Against the wall,” she gasped, dagger sharp nails digging into his back as she clung to him. She didn’t seem to notice or care much about the fact that nothing was pressing up against her heat. “Please. I’m small enough now.”

“You were small enough to fuck up against the wall yesterday too,” he muttered against her lips as his hands dropped to his side. “I was strong enough.”

Brienne finally pulled away from him confused at first but then anger replaced it.

“You have the most beautiful woman in the world begging you to fuck her up against a wall, and you’re going to refuse me?” A cold cruel smirk tugged at her lips, a look she had never, not even in his worst nightmares, imagined she would ever wear. “Am I too far removed from your family tree for you to get hard for?”

Jaime inhaled sharply and Brienne threw her hands over her mouth and her dull grey eyes grew wide when she realized what she said. “I’m sorry,” she whispered a moment later, words heavy with regret. “Gods Jaime I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

She might as well have slapped him. That would have hurt less. Brienne had been the only one to never mock him for Cersei, to never use the Twins perversions in an argument, she was never cruel, she never joked or bullied or made snide comments like the one she just had or anything of the like. 

“Forgive me,” she begged him, taking hold of his hand. “Please. I never should have said that, I’m so sorry.” Brienne quickly pulled on her new dress, smoothing out the wrinkles. She couldn’t meet his eyes and Jaime found that he didn’t want her too. “I- I need to go talk to Lady Sansa.”

“You won’t be able to keep your oath anymore,” he muttered, watching as she ran a hand through her new curls. 

She rounded on him. “I DID keep my oath,” Brienne said rather fiercely. “I kept Lady Sansa safe and got her back to Winterfell. Nothing I swore to keep her safe and return her to Winterfell, not serve as a lackey to a child.”

Jaime narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s how you speak of the woman you’re sworn to? What the hells is wrong with you?”

“Nothing! Maybe I’m just tired of you chastising me for something we BOTH wanted!”

“I didn’t want this!” he shouted back. “I  _ NEVER _ wanted you to change!”

“Oh please!” she spat. “I heard you and Sansa loud and clear this morning!”

Jaime blinked. “You… you heard us? Then why would you-.”

“It doesn’t matter, nothing matters anymore because I’m beautiful now, I’m every man’s ideal, I could have WHOEVER I want!”

“Are you saying you were simply settling with me?”

The hateful sneer reminded him far too much of Cersei. “All I’m saying is there are a lot more men out there who want me now than just a middle aged kingslayer with one hand who knows what their sister's cunt tastes like.”

Kingslayer. Brienne called him Kingslayer. The word was a dagger to the heart and twice as painful. She knew the truth, she knew about Aerys, she knew how he detested the moniker he earned trying to be honorable. She knew all that, and she called him that anyway.

Jaime stared down at Brienne, finding her far uglier now than he ever had before. “Perhaps you should go find him then.”

Not even a hint of a tear in her dull grey eyes. “Perhaps I will.” 

Without so much as a look towards him Brienne turned on her heel and stormed out of her chambers.


	11. Brienne

_ He told Sansa I was ugly. He told her he thought I was ugly and that he wanted to fuck Cersei rather than me then he gets upset when I give him this. Well now the one handed Kingslayer can go and fuck his bitch sister as much as he wants. _

Brienne flinched as she made her way to Sansa’s chambers. Jaime wasn’t a kingslayer, he was a good man. She had to stop thinking of him like that, she couldn’t call him that again. Not to mention he lost his hand protecting her and defending her, Brienne had no right to mock him for that.

The walk to her Lady’s chambers was a long one and more than once the men who passed her by in the halls, men who never would have spared her so much as a glance besides to gawk at her obscene height, would look at her with lust and want and she couldn’t help but smile.

Was this how women like Cersei and Daenerys felt every day? To pass by any given man and know they would move heaven and earth just for a chance to lay between her legs? Every look she received made her feel confident, made her feel powerful. She felt strong, not in the way she was used too, but she possessed a different kind of strength now. This was a woman’s strength.

If Jaime couldn’t support this choice then she didn’t need him. She had her pick of any man she wanted, kings and lords would fight to the death for her now rather than simply sneer at her when they saw her. If the Kingslayer couldn’t accept her as she was then he could go back to the  _ second  _ most beautiful woman in Westeros and try to be content.

She waited for the guilt that accompanied her using that nickname but she found the more often she used it, the less she cared if her words caused him upset. It wasn’t guilt she felt; but deep down there a sliver of fear that ate away at her for the fact that she no longer felt remorse for her words.

Once she reached Sansa’s chamber, Brienne smoothed out the silk dress before she knocked on the door. Podrick answered and for a moment Brienne was terribly confused as to why she came face to face with him when she was always forced to look down at her squire. But now she wouldn’t have wagered there was an inch or so difference between them.

“Can I help you?” Pod asked, making a piss poor attempt not to let his eyes wander over her.

“I need to speak to Lady Sansa,” she told him, and the lust washed away, replaced by puzzlement as he looked around her for the source of her voice.

“Ser Brienne?” he called out, looking up and down the hall. 

“It’s me, Podrick.” 

The young man turned back at her, brow furrowed. “I-... I’m sorry, My Lady, I-.”

“Is that Brienne?”

Brienne took a sharp breath as Sansa came to the door. The red headed girl was taller than her now. Not by much, but it was still a jarring experience to have to tilt her head up, even just slightly, to be able to meet her pale blue eyes. She had the whole walk back to the castle to resign herself to being shorter than Jaime, she had looked forward to the experiences that came with that if she was being honest with herself. Him kissing the top of her head, her wearing his shirts and having them come down to her mid thigh, having him lift her in the air like all the knights in the songs and stories did to their ladies.

But she hadn’t given much thought to Sansa. Her Lady was a tall woman, just as her mother had been but even in her old body the redhead had to crane her neck up to look at her sworn sword like all the others.

_ She’s even taller than her brother... Who will protect her now when she towers over her own guards? _

Brienne shook her head. It wasn’t fair for her to be guilted into wanting what was best for her and not Sansa for once. Brienne kept her oath, she got the girl to Winterfell safe and sound. Her oath was done the moment the Direwolf sigil flew on the keeps walls. Sansa had been the one to keep Brienne on as more or less a servant, Sansa had been the one who used her to threaten an unarmed Littlefinger (something that would have brought the blonde knight dishonor) then refused to take her advice not to trust him and snapped at Brienne whenever she tried to talk to her about the greasy haired snake.

Sansa didn’t want a sworn sword; she wanted a lackey, a personal serving girl, a great lumbering beast to scare off the dogs Brienne thought bitterly as she looked up at Sansa. 

But no more. Today things would be changing.

“Apologies,” Sansa said to the blonde. “I thought you were someone else.”

“I am someone else,” she answered. “It’s me, My Lady. Brienne of Tarth.”

Sansa raised a brow at the woman, condescension dripping off of every feature. “I’m well aware of what my sworn sword looks like. Is this some trick?”

“No trick, My Lady. I made a deal with a warlock to make me beautiful.”

“Lady Brienne hates magic,” Podrick spoke up sharply as Sansa eyed her with unease. “She would never use it on herself. Who are you?”

“Things change,” Brienne said. “Do either of you believe she would ever betray either of your secrets?”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” Sansa said. “But-.”

“You killed a kingsguard during the Battle of the Blackwater,” she interrupted her, looking at Pod. “You shoved a spear through the back of his head. You know it saved Lord Tyrion but you still have nightmares about it and you hate that you don’t relish in your kills like men you consider your betters might do. You’re a decent swordsman but you always,  _ always,  _ let your opponent lead you, no matter how many times I try to teach you otherwise.”

His thick jaw dropped to the ground and his warm brown eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “I- I never… Lady Brienne, she’s the only one who knows-,” he started to stammer out but Brienne interrupted his mutterings to turn to Sansa who was currently failing at keeping the fear from gnawing at her usually stoic expression.

“I know why you refuse to let your handmaid's help bathe you,” she said simply. 

Brienne saw the scars that marked a once flawless porcelain body when they were guests at Castle Black, scars given to her courtesy of Ramsey Bolton. Brienne wanted to ride down to Winterfell and cut the man down to size but Sansa begged her not to. “If you falter even half a step in your swordsmanship and he or his men win he won’t just kill you,” Sansa warned her, pulling on a housecoat to cover up the proof of what she was saying. “He’ll do much, much worse.”

_Your body is hideous and mine would make the Maiden envious._ Her plump lips curled up into a hint of a sneer as she looked over the redhead, picturing the hundreds of cuts and scars beneath her grey gown. _How the tables have turned._

But nearly as soon as she thought it, she was chastising herself. A man forced himself on Sansa and tortured her, and Brienne stood there comparing their beauty? The only reason the knight was able to escape that same fate was because Jaime cried out ‘sapphires’ the first time then Locke had been dumb enough to try to mount her without binding her wrists the the second (it took five of his guards to pull her off him and by then the goat was so enraged that he simply ordered her to be thrown into the bear pit rather than try to lay with her again).

A cold shudder traveled up Brienne's spine. Why was she being so cruel all of a sudden? Why was she being so harsh and so completely and utterly unlike herself?

Why was she being so ugly?

Sansa swallowed hard. “Anyone could interpret what happened.” Her voice trembled. “Anyone could-.”

“When I swore my vow to you, you forgot the words,” Brienne interrupted. “Podrick had to remind you of the order, ‘meat and mead at my table’. Is that also something anyone could have guessed?”

Podrick has to grip the doorframe to keep from collapsing. Sansa’s pale blue eyes grew wide and she took a hasty step back, chest heaving. “Lady… Lady Brienne?” she breathed. “Is... is it truly you?”

“It is. May I come in?”

She nodded as if she was in a daze and moved out of the way so the now smaller woman could come in. “I… I don’t… Why? How? When?”

“Because I was offered the chance to be beautiful and I took it,” Brienne told her. “I made a deal with a warlock.” Sansa was gaping at her and Podrick was avoiding looking at Brienne at all costs. “But I’m afraid My Lady that this means I won’t be able to be your sworn sword any longer.”

“But… Your oath,” Podrick stammered out. “What about your oath?”

Gods she was sick to death of hearing about her bloody oath. It was simply a promise (a promise she had kept thank you very much.) Why was there so much emphasis on keeping it? Men and women broke promises and oaths every day; why did Brienne have to be different? Why did she have to be somehow morally superior?

“I kept my oath,” she shot back hotly. “I got her to Winterfell safe and sound.”

“But you swore yourself to me,” Sansa reminded her. 

“Things change. Everyone in this world has broken promises, everyone has forsaken vows; why am I never allowed to?”

“Because that’s not what true knights do,” Podrick said softly. 

“Oh please,” Brienne spat. “A knight is nothing more than a title given to whoever knows how to swing a sword, which is why you’ll always be nothing more than a pathetic waste of space masquerading as a squire.”

She had never seen him look so hurt but for once she didn’t care. “My lady, you-.”

“Besides,” the blonde continued. “There's no such thing as a ‘true knight’. They exist only in songs we sing to simpleton children to make them behave.”

“That is not true,” Sansa argued. “ _ You _ are a true knight, Ser Brienne.” 

Brienne laughed, cold and unfeeling. It sounded foreign to her ears. “Oh really? You, who’ve been beaten and raped and had your father's head cut off in front of her still believe in children’s stories? You believe there’s men in shining white armor out there doing good, defending the innocents, helping the weak?” She sneered at the red head. “If you truly believe that then you’re as stupid as your she-wolf mother was.”

Sansa stepped back as if she’d been slapped. After a moment the realization hit her and Brienne threw her hands over her mouth, her blue eyes wide. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “Sansa-.”

“Get out,” the wolf snarled.

“You  **_know_ ** how much I loved your mother!” 

“I said… Get. Out.”

Brienne glanced at Podrick who stood faithfully by Sansa’s side. Without another word the blonde turned and headed back to her chambers, mind racing all the while. Jaime had gone and she was left all alone with a cold tray of food, her cobalt armor and Oathkeeper. 

The moment she slammed the door behind her she fell against it, heart pounding against her chest and her eyes growing wet. She had never, not once, said much less thought any disparaging remark about Lady Catelyn and she’d certainly NEVER considered saying it to Sansa. She loved Catelyn, she looked at the older woman as a mother, it crushed her very soul when she found out about her death, she would never-... 

A tear slowly crept down her cheek and Brienne brushed it away, sniffing away all the rest. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t right, she insulted Jaime, she insulted Lady Catelyn, she mocked Sansa… Brienne had been just as despicable as the girls who used to torment her, only this was worse. Much, much worse because this wasn’t who she was, nor did she ever wish to be this person. She used to dream of being beautiful and comely and fair of face, of having a body men coveted and women envied. But she still wanted to be  _ her.  _ Kind and good and honorable, not mocking the man she loved or being cruel to her Ladies memory.

No. No, something was wrong, the warlock had messed up the spell somehow. Brienne retrieved the slip of paper and with a deep breath she called out his name.

“Rumplestiltskin,” she tried again after a moment of nothingness. “Rumplestiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin I summon thee! Rumple-!”

“I heard you the first time!” Brienne whipped around to find the imp examining Oathkeeper. Her breath was taken aback once more at the sudden appearance of the little gold man who spun on the heel of his boot with a flourish that would have made the best dancer envious. “There’s no need to shout,  _ dearie _ ,” he snarled through gritted teeth.

Gods she wished she could still swing a sword.

“My apologies but something went wrong with the spell.”

His face flooded with faux sympathy and concern. “Oh no! Whatever do you mean? Are you not pleased with your looks?”

“No I- I am,” she assured him. “I’m very pleased. But there’s something wrong with me. I’m not acting like myself. You need to fix this.”

He smiled at her. A cruel and terrifying grin that sent a shiver down her spine. “Oh no, not to worry. The spell worked exactly as it was meant too to.”

“No I was only supposed to become beautiful, I wasn’t supposed to act-.”

“Ugly?” She nodded. “Well where did you think all that beauty came from, Dearie?” Rumple leaned in close and Brienne was too frozen in fear to back away. “And where do you think all that ugliness went? You _were_ the most beautiful woman in Westeros. But it was all on the inside,” he clarified in an obnoxious sing-song voice. “So I took all the loveliness and attractiveness and utter magnificence and brought it to the outside and I shoved all that **_wretched hideousness_** to the inside. 

“No,” Brienne whimpered. She clutched at her desk as she sank to the floor. The room was spinning and it took every ounce of her limited strength to keep from collapsing. “No no no no no…”

“Oh yes yes yes yes yes, Dearie. You had the most  **_beautiful_ ** soul in all the realms… but a beautiful soul doesn't really look good in a new dress now does it?”

Brienne hardly heard him. The blood was pounding in her ears, she felt dizzy and her stomach wretched violently. Her breath was coming out in short panicked gasps. 

She was going to be cruel. She’d be no better than Cersei, she would have the same black heart as the woman who hurt Jaime, of those she swore she would never be like, the ones who mocked her, who tore her down as much as they could. 

“That wasn’t the deal.” Her voice shook and her eyes grew wet with tears that she let fall down her pale porcelain face. “That wasn’t what I agreed to.”

“Oh yes it was. You said, ‘make me beautiful’ and I did. There was no specifics on the ‘how’.”

She stood up in a furt. “No!” she shouted at him, panic blinding her to the dangers of arguing with this  _ thing _ . “That’s not what I wanted, this isn’t what I agreed to! The deal wasn’t honored!”

“I always honor my deals!” he roared, jabbing a finger in her face. She reached for a sword that would never sit at her hip again. 

“Brienne!” a voice cried from the hallway. A moment later her door burst open and Jaime was there, Widows Wail in hand.

“Seven above,” he gasped, gaping at the imp and freezing in place. His green eyes flickered from Rumple to Brienne, the latter trembling. She hated this. Not being able to defend herself, not being able to protect herself, feeling so completely helpless. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the stunned lion. “Jaime, I’m so sorry, I made a mistake.”

Her voice must have stirred him back to reality. Jaime stormed into her room, brandishing the sword. “Get away from her,” he snarled, dangerous and deadly as the beast on his sigil. He grabbed hold of Brienne's arm and threw the now helpless blonde behind him. “If you touch her-.”

“You’ll what?” Rumple demanded, any amusement fled from his voice as which as it came. “You’ll challenge me to a duel?” In a poof of black smoke a sword appeared in his hand and he brandished it with a grand flourish. Jaime took a hurried step back and Brienne clutched his arm. “I think I might have the slight advantage.”

“What the hell is going on here?” another voice barked before a set of heels stormed into the room. “What’s all the-... Rumple…” Regina gasped. Her brown eyes grew as wide as saucer plates. “What are you doing here?” She looked towards Brienne who was still holding onto Jaime’s arm and the queen's face fell. “What the hell did you do?”

“I made a mistake,” Brienne said, voice shaking. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace .”

“We’ll deal with that later,” Regina said dryly, walking over to the golden skinned man, not a hint of fear in her eyes but rather annoyance and anger. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Where do you think, Dearie?”

Regina pursed her lips, a storm raging in her brown eyes. “With her.”

“Such a clever one, Sis.”

They all turned at and saw Zelena lounging against the doors, a wicked grin on her ruby red lips. In her hands she held the strangest dagger Brienne had ever seen, wavy and ancient looking with a single name engraved in the metal in black.  _ ‘Rumplestiltskin’ _ .

“Zelena,” Regina snarled. The red head laughed, deep and heavy and seductive and when she walked her hips swayed and beckoned. She was quite the beautiful woman, not counting the green skin. “What are you doing here?” Brown eyes traveled down the witches tall and glorious. “Wearing  _ my _ dress?”

“Oh relax, Sis. It looks better on me don't you agree?” Her grin could have cut stone as she leaned in close to the queen. “ _ Much _ better, I’d say.”

“Well considering I planned to throw it away, I’d say it suits you  _ perfectly _ .”

Any semblance of smugness disappeared, replaced by a fury that radiated out of her like smoke would rise from a fire. She quickly turned with a huff and pale green almost grey eyes found Jaime. Her lips curled into a smile dripping with sin. “Well hello there,” she purred at the stone faced man who had yet to drop his sword. “I can see why you made the deal,” she told Brienne without sparing her so much as a glance. “The handsome knight always gets with pretty maids in the stories, and the ugly trolls are always stuck underneath the bridges.” She ran a long finger down his chest. “Who would want to be stuck underneath a bridge when you could climb on top of this?”

“Green isn’t really my color,” Jaime shot back dryly.

“Not yet,” she cooed, tongue darting out behind gleaming white teeth.

“What are you doing here, Zelena?” Regina asked once more, more annoyed than anything else. Zelena winked at Jaime before she turned towards her sister. “Don’t you have a broomstick to go ride?”

“Afraid not. You see I'm going to be quite busy reading our mother’s favorite book.” In a poof of lime green smoke, the spell book the knight stole was suddenly in her hand. “There’s lots of great little spells and interesting bits and bobbles here.”

Brienne quickly grabbed a dagger from Jaime’s sword belt. “She can’t hurt you,” she announced, finally coming out from behind him and brandishing the knife at Zelena. “She can’t hurt  _ anyone.  _ That was all part of the deal.” 

Brienne wasn’t sure what she expected to see when she reminded Zelena of that cavet. Rage to paint her face, shock to overwhelm her, fury, disappointment… any of those would have been expectant. But instead she just chuckled, low and throaty. “Who ever said I was going to hurt her with the spell? You don’t hurt anyone with a time travel spell.” Her smirk was dangerous. “You hurt them with  _ other _ spells once you’ve traveled.”

The blonde bowed her head in defeat, ignoring the cruel cackling from the green woman. Brienne failed. She tried to protect the queen, she tried to protect everyone and instead they found a workaround for that too. She tried to cheat on the price Regina warned her she would have to pay and the consequences had come back on her tenfold.

“You wicked little bitch,” Regina said, almost sounding half impressed.

Zelena just smirked at her brown-eyed sibling. “Sorry I can’t stay and chat,” she said airily as she came over and stood besides Rumple who didn’t look half as pleased to be by her side as the witch did. As a matter of fact, he looked downright loathe to be near her. “Got a lot to do, a lot to figure out… Ta ta for now, Sis.”

With a loud cackle and a flash of green smoke, she and Rumple disappeared. 

Please Review!


	12. Emma

Emma missed Boston.

Sure there she was an orphan with no family or friends, no Henry, no Killian; but at least magic was something that only existed in imaginations, dragons lived only in movies, fairy tales were only there to teach lessons to children, and the idea she could ever be a hero or a savior to anyone much less a whole kingdom was absolutely laughable.

Instead she was sitting in a castle in the former evil queen's war room with her boyfriend Captain Hook, her mother Snow White and her father Prince Charming, listening to a woman from a land where ice zombies had taken over explain that she didn’t mean to doom them all when she made a deal with Rumplestiltskin and the Wicked Witch of the West, who also happened to be said former evil queens half sister, and that her becoming beautiful had turned her into a raging bitch.

She just wanted to go home. She wanted Henry, Killian in some little apartment in downtown, she would go back to being a bail bondsman, Henry would go to a school where swordsmanship wasn’t an elective, and Hook would find work at the docks. Her parents would live an hour or so away in the country on that little farm David always talked about, Henry could visit Regina whenever he wanted and her life would be perfect. 

But the savior doesn’t get an easy existence like that.

“I can’t believe you,” Regina barked at Brienne who bowed her head in shame. Her dagger heels clicked on the ground as she paced back and forth. “I  **_told_ ** you not to mess with Zelena or Rumple and what’s the first thing you do? You go and trade away my spell book all so you could be  _ pretty _ ?”

“Brienne tried to protect everyone,” the young boy they called Pod said. “She tried to make sure the book couldn’t be used to hurt anyone.”

“It’s not her fault they double crossed her,” Sansa added with a nod.

“I told her not to trust them!” She whipped around to an embarrassed Briemme. “You’re as stupid as you were ugly!”

“You talk to her like that again and me and you are going to have a problem, Your Majesty,” Jaime told her, clutching their hilt of his sword. Regina shot back a deadly glare and, both surprisingly and not at all, Robin glared at the green eyed knight as well.

“She was dumb enough to make a deal with two people I warned her not to and THEN if that wasn’t bad enough she owes him a favor! You can forget us helping your country by the way.” Job bowed his head in defeat. “Thanks to her we need to put all our energy into getting out of the mess she put us into! The only problem you have is that your girlfriend is a fucking idiot!”

Robin must have sensed what would happen before Emma did. He jumped from his seat and had an arrow out of his quiver and loaded before she could even blink. The archer took aim at the one handed man who drew his sword and pointed its sharp edge at their queen. Brienne made to throw herself in front of him but Jaime shoved her, hard, back into her chair and she went flying back, shocked. Emma wagered that she was not used to being pushed around so easily. 

“You draw steel against my Lady, you will suffer my wrath,” Robin told him in no uncertain terms, arrow aimed at his handsome face. “Remember this warning well, Lannister, it's your only one.”

The savior remembered the dinner that first night when Arya threatened Daenerys and half the table erupted to defend her from mere words and the other half went to protect the two Stark girls. Now though with an arrow pointed at Jaime’s chest the only one who made a move to save him was the now helpless Brienne and his brother Tyrion looked more exasperated then panicked. 

Not exactly a popular guy, she guessed as she stood from her chair. 

“Everyone calm down,” Emma urged, coming around the table and putting a hand on Robin’s arrow and lowering it, and thankfully Jaime followed suit. “Alright now look; we all made deals with Gold that we regret,” she said, looking around the table. “She tried to prevent it, they screwed her, shit happens. There’s no reason for insults or trying to stab someone just because they insulted her,” she said looking between Jaime and Regina. “Right now we have bigger things to worry about then trying to kill each other over an insult or placing blame.”

“Emma’s right,” Snow said with a curt nod. “Our biggest worry right now is figuring out a way to save Regina.”

“What about our home?” Sansa argued. “Every minute we sit here debating this-.”

“Is another minute closer to Zelena casting her curse,” David interrupted. “I’m sorry, but right now we have our own problems, we can’t help you reclaim your land.”

“Your Grace, please,” Jon begged. “We need your help. Without it Westeros will fall.”

“And we all know whose fault that’ll be,” Regina sneered at the blonde who stood up from her spot, an unfamiliar fire in her eyes.

“Listen you evil bitch, I said I was sorry,” she barked. By the reaction to her companions Emma was sure that her sharp tone, much less those words, had never been spoken by the knight before. “What else do you want me to do?!”

“You put my life at risk!” Regina boomed. Emma beside them jumped as a window cracked. “You put all of our lives in danger, who can tell what effects Zelena messing with time will have on everyone?! I could lose my  **_son_ ** _! _ And you think a ‘sorry’ will make up for that?!”

“Judging from the stories I’ve heard about you since I’ve been been here, you losing your child would be MORE than karmic justice!” she yelled. “He would consider himself lucky if you were-!” 

“Brienne, stop,” Jaime said sharply. 

“Finish that sentence,” the queen snarled, raising her hand. “Do it. I dare you.” 

Robin put himself between her and Brienne and put his hands on her shoulders in an effort to calm her down which worked wonders, but only because her brown eyes were suddenly full of fear and worry. She quickly stepped away from him, swallowing hard and gazing down at the floor. Emma and Snow looked at one another, a silent message passing between them about that potential new development. 

“This isn’t you,”the one handed knight continued. “This is just the curse.”

“So what if it is?” Brienne shot back. “Why am I never allowed to stand up for myself?”

“You can, but you’re being horrid about it,” Sansa argued, and Brienne laughed; a cold and cruel sound that fit her new self but would have sounded wildly out of place with her old.

“You really want to talk about being horrid to someone? You BOTH do?!” She looked between her two friends. Her eyes, once the most beautiful Emma had ever seen now excessively dull and ordinary, narrowed in hatred. “You WANTED me Like this! You BOTH did! This happened because of you two!”

“I NEVER wanted you like this, I told you!” Jaime yelled. “You think I wanted you like this? Looking like every other woman out there and acting every cunt Highborn Lady who thinks they’re better than the rest because you had the grace to be born lucky? You think I wanted you to act and look like  **_Cersei_ ** ?”

Emma wasn’t sure who this Cersei was, but judging from the hurt and look of astonishment on Brienne's face she wagered that it wasn’t anyone good

The blonde swallowed hard, her voice shaking. “You told Sansa that you… that you wanted to  _ picture _ her last night, that you couldn’t stand my looks

“I never said that!” he shouted, eyes wide. “I told Sansa this morning that I-!”

“That you may love me, yes, but then you said how you- that you thought I was unattractive, that ‘it took everything in you not to take me from behind, to not just close your eyes and picture your sister’.”

Emma blinked. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Then you asked what kind of father would you be if you were to curse any children of ours with my looks,” she continued without answering Emma’s inquiry. 

Pod clutched the hilt of his sword. “You talked about her like that?”

“Of course not!”

“You lie, Kingslayer! I heard you!” Brienne turned towards Sansa, “and you said you could barely stand looking at me if not for your courtesies!”

“I never said that!” Sansa snapped, letting a rare show of emotion shine through her porcelain mask. “You are not only my sworn shield, you are my friend Brienne and I would never talk about you like that!”

“I heard you! I heard both of you in the stables this morning where Jaime told me to meet him!”

“We were never in the stables!”

“And all I told you was I was getting us breakfast and would be right back, not to meet me in the stables!”

“No! Okay you- you left a note-!”

“Saying I was going to get us breakfast after one of the best bloody nights of my life, you stupid stubborn wench!”

“Aye, Ser Jaime did come down to the kitchens to get two breakfasts this morning,” Davos said. “Around a quarter past 7, it just took us a while to get it because so many people were left over from the feast.”

Brienne shook her head, but Emma could see the doubt in her eyes. “No… No, I heard them, I  _ SAW _ them!”

“No you didn’t, Brienne!”

“Oh Jesus Christ!” Regina barked, waving her hands and a puff of purple smoke surrounded her for a moment before it cleared away and left an exact copy of Jaime Lannister in her place.

Jaime and Brienne leapt back, staring wide eyed and slack jawed at the queen and the rest of the Westerosi looked on with stunned expressions, ranging from frightened to in absolute awe.

“Seven save us,” Davos gaped, clutching the back of his chair. 

“All it takes is a few years of studying magic and I could be whoever I wanted,” Regina said in Jaime’s voice. “They tricked you. You saw Zelena and Rumple pretending to be Jaime and Sansa.” In another poof of smoke she was back to her old form. “Now can we PLEASE get back to the issue of hand which is Zelena wanting to kill me?”

Brienne whipped around towards Jaime, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her jaw trembling. “Jaime, I’m so sorry, I didn’t-... I- I thought you-.” He quickly wrapped his arms around her and she clutched at his shirt as she rested her head on his chest biting back her tears. “I should have known you wouldn’t have-...”

“It’s alright,” he told her, kissing the top of her head. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is though, I should have trusted you, and- and Lady Sansa you as well,” she added, turning in his arms to face the red head. “I apologize, My Lady.”

“You’re forgiven,” Sansa said with a curt nod before looking to Regina. “How do we change her back?”

“Forgive me for not carrying about that right now. My problem first, then we worry about your friends' makeover.”

“He made her cruel.”

Regina gave her a bitter smile. “She can join the club.”

“How about we deal with one thing at a time?” Emma spoke up. “Regina is time travel an easy spell?”

“No one has ever done it in the history of magic so no, it isn’t.”

“Alright then we can at least breathe a little easy. We have some time to get the book back and to stop her.”

“With all due respect, you may have time but we don’t,” Jon piped up. “The dead are overwhelming Westeros!”

“No ones stopping you from leaving,” Regina barked.

“We need your help!” 

“I need to live!”

“Everything you love. Everything all of you love, will be taken from you.” 

The queen, Snow and David all whipped towards Bran, who had been silent up until this point. He looked up at them, unblinking. “What did you say?” Snow asked in a frightened whisper.

Bran just looked at the princess. “The dead will not stop at Westeros,” he said in his unnaturally stoic voice. “They will cross the narrow sea to Essos, and then again to Misthaven. He will follow you to Agrabah, to Arendal, to a Land without Magic… All the realms will fall to the Night King if you do not help us. 

A heavy silence fell over the group. They all glanced at one another, panic rising in their throats before we turned back to Bran. Snow swallowed hard, reaching down and clutching David and Emma’s hands both in a tight grip. “We-... Zelena, she-. We have to deal with her first, we can’t-.”

“We will help you defeat your witch,” Bran said. “Then you help us defeat the army of the dead.” 

“But how?”

He turned to look at Brienne. “She makes another deal. She will turn herself back into who she was meant to be. She will be younger, more beautiful again.”

“Wait ‘more beautiful’? What are you talking about?” Brienne asked. “More beautiful then who?”

He just stared at her, saying nothing until she looked away. 

Before another word could be uttered, Grump walked into the room. “We got a big problem.”

“Oh for fuck sakes, what now?!” Regina snapped.

“Another group of these Westeros people just showed up at our castle after sailing into the Eastern dock,” he announced. “The chick with them, who ALSO calls herself a queen, is demanding to speak to whoever’s in charge. Said her name was Cersei Lannister.”

Please Review 


	13. Regina

_ Of course there’s ANOTHER fucking queen. _

Regina waited, agitated and tired, out front of the gathered group with Daenerys standing proud and tall beside her. 

When Grumpy announced the woman’s name there was a heavy strong, almost fearful silence, from the Westerosi. Jaime cursed, Sansa went totally stoic and plain faced, even more so than usual, Tyrion looked just as fed up as Regina did, and the rest just glanced at one another nervously. 

The visitors all told them tales and stories about Cersei from the day they got here, and if they were to believed she was just as much a villain as Regina had been in her pre-Emma days, and their stories appeared almost remarkably similar to the forced marriages, the abusive parent, slaughtering whole villages... There was one crucial difference between the two queens though; whereas Regina knew she needed to change, even before Henry, Cersei relished in her cruelty.

When Cersei finally arrived she was flanked by an older man in long brown robes, a tall man, taller and broader then Regina had ever seen, in full armor with strange red pupils and what looked like rotting skin beneath the eye slit, then a weasley looking man with greasy brown hair and black leather who grinned when they approached the group. The queen herself was dressed in a high collared black gown with a silver crown atop her head, she stood tall and proud, looking down her nose at the world, and looked more the part of queen than either Daenerys OR Regina. Her eyes were deep green emeralds and she surveyed the group before her and landed on Jaime, her hateful gaze boring into him before he glanced down at the stone floor. Brienne’s hand flinched, like she might take his but then thought better of it.

The also looked at the group, and his face lit up when he spotted the one handed pirate. 

“Hook!” he shouted, shattering the tense silence. The one handed pirate smiled, and crossed the no man’s land to meet him with a tight hug. 

“It’s been a long time, Greyjoy,” he said when he broke apart to look at him. “Too long.”

“It has, it has. You haven’t changed at all.”

“Aye, we can't all be blessed with my good looks unfortunately, as you’re well aware.”

“Could we skip the reunions until after we’re done here?” a very unamused Regina said. Euron just chuckled, acting like she was a child trying to order around her parents rather than a queen giving an order to her subject, and told Hook that he would talk to him later. 

“We uh, we got a lot to catch up on,” Euron said with a nod and a wink towards the short haired queen, and Regina saw Cersei’s hand curl into a tight fist. 

Oddly; Jaime grew visibly agitated at the comment, and he threw a hateful look at Euron who smirked at the knight. The two men acted like they might have been romantic rivals rather than just a brother being protective of his sister’s honor.

Hook fell back into place and Cersei took a deep breath, forcing a smile to her beautiful face as her eyes found Sansa. “You've grown into quite the beauty, little dove.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” said Sansa, as cooly cordial as ever. “I’ve seen you’ve grown as well.”

Beside her Daenerys bit back a snicker, and murder flashed in Cersei’s eyes, so much so that Jon stepped in front of his sister, shielding her from the queens gaze and gripping the white hilt of his sword. Brienne took a step forward, momentarily forgetting she couldn’t defend or fight anyone anymore, and Jaime grabbed hold of her hand to keep her going any further. He let go almost immediately but it was too late, and Cersei had seen the gesture.

“As I said, how about we skip the reunions?” Regina said, getting the queens attention once more. “What are you doing here? What do you need?”

“Your help,” Cersei answered. “Westeros, my country; it’s being overwhelmed by the dead.”

“Yeah we know,” Emma piped up. “Night King, eternal winters, if we don’t help everyone is going to turn into ice zombies... you’re a little bit behind in the reading.”

“It’s gotten worse since they’ve abandoned their country,” Cersei said, looking between Jon and Daenerys. “The Red Priests, the Dothraki, the Northmen… they’re all being pushed back further and further. Eventually they will pass the narrow valley of the Neck, and then all is lost.”

“You wouldn’t bring your men north to fight,” Daenerys challenged her. “You lied to us, you were never going to send your men to fight, you were never going to put our war aside to help. Now all of a sudden you care about the country?”

“There’s no shame in self preservation,” she answered in what could almost be described as a growl. “And now; my self preservation is being threatened, so I’m here to ask for help. I ordered the remaining Lannister army to join the battle, as well as the armies of the Stormlands, the Reach even the Golden Company. They’re all there, fighting for my country.”

“Why should we trust you?” Sansa asked as she stepped out from behind Jon. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“Would I be here if I wasn’t? What reason would I have to travel to a foreign land and humble myself by asking for help if I wasn’t willing to order the ones I do command to fight?” When no one had an answer, Cersei’s eyes found Regina’s. “I would speak to the queen of this land alone.”

“No, you speak with all of us here or not at all,” Daenerys challenged.

“I know you’re used to ruling over savages, but in civilized society when two monarchs have a meeting to discuss war, an audience of rabble isn’t usually present.”

“She is a monarch as well,” Sansa said, before anyone could comment. Daenerys raised a pale brow at the redhead. “If you wish it to be just royalty then she should be a part of the council as well.”

The smile on Cersei’s lips was deadly, and Regina understood full and well now why they called her a lioness. “You fight for the Dragon Queen now, little dove?”

“I fight for whoever is best suited to rip your family’s poisonous tree out of the ground root and stem.”

Murder flashed in her eyes, and her hand curled into a tight fist. Her voice shook with rage. “Is that so?”

“Enough,” Regina barked, looking between Cersei and Sansa. “Who’s the  **_legal_ ** queen of your country?”

“Her,” Daenerys spat bitterly. “But I am-.”

“Then I’ll talk to her alone. She’s right, that’s how things are done in monarchies when they discuss war, and it’s for exactly this reason. To prevent people from losing their tempers because of unrelated reasonings. Leave us.”

The silver haired queen’s violet eyes filled with a hateful fire but she turned on her heel without an argument and stormed out, and her supporters and guards all followed in suit. Sansa took one last moment to look upon the woman who once held her hostage before she and the rest of the Starks and Podrick followed her out, and the two Greyjoy’s who came on the first ship followed soon, the two of them sharing a glare with their uncle before they disappeared.

“Qyburn,” she said without tearing her eyes from her retreating twin and the now beautiful blonde by his side, “go and tell my brother to meet me in my chambers after this meeting. I wish to speak with him.” She looked over at Euron. “Alone.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” The older man bowed and left, and Euron swallowed hard before he turned and stormed out of the war room. 

The rest of those from Enchanted Forest left as well, and when Robin held back to assure Regina he would be right outside if she needed him, she blushed and muttered out that she was fine, but offered her thanks, 

When the door shut and they were alone at last the two queens looked at one another, scrutinizing each other, taking measure of the other while smiles they both knew were fake danced on their lips.

“Thank you for speaking to me, Your Grace,” Cersei said. “As I’m sure you’re aware there’s a little… friction between the various Houses of Westeros.”

“Friction is putting it mildly,” Regina scoffed, going over and pouring them each a glass of wine. “It’s been a constant battlefield between them all since we arrived.”

Cersei accepted the wine with her thanks and sat down at the table. “Yes well… we’ve been at war for a very long time,”

“So they’ve said. With your family being the majority cause of it from what the others have said.”

“You’ll find that with that crowd a bolt of lightning could strike and they would blame it on the Lannisters.” 

“So you didn’t kill your husband and start the war?” she said, repeating what Tyrion told her.

“Oh no I did.” Cersei took a sip of wine. “The same as you.”

Regina raises a painted brow. “How did you-?”

“It was a long journey from the docks and you know how the lowborn are; they like to talk about every sordid thing their betters have done.” Cersei smiles and raised her glass. “To getting rid of wretched husbands.”

The dark haired queen just smirked and clinked her glass against hers. “I can drink to that.”

Afterwards Cersei set the glass down, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “You’ve heard some vile things about me that would make me seem untrustworthy, I’m sure. Both truth and rumors.”

“Quite a few. I assume Daenerys wasn’t wrong when she said that you lied about it sending your men.”

“No she was right, as I said before. But did the Targaryen girl tell you how she burns her enemies? She talks about how those who follow her choose to follow, but in Westeros the only choice she gives is kneel or burn. If I showed up with me soldiers, and we won, who’s to say she wouldn’t demand I bend the knee or burn right there on the battlefield after she burned my men? Did she tell you she has spent less than a year in Westeros, the land she wishes to rule, and that all of her soldiers are foreign entities because very few of those born in Westeros wish to follow her? Eunuchs, and slavers known for their depraved violence against women and children?”

“Uh no. No she didn’t. She actually said she freed a lot of slaves, that they called her their mother.”

“Oh yes she did. But her Unsullied have been slaves since birth, brainwashed and tortured, with nowhere else to go. They either follow her or stave in the desert and risk being made slaves again. She left her ‘children’ and allowed them to slip back into chains so she might seize power to a country she hasn’t seen since she was in swaddling clothes. She owned slaves herself when she was wedded to one of the greatest Dothraki slavers the world has ever seen, she burns those accused of crimes rather than wait to gather evidence, she burns wagons of food when the country is facing a long and terrible winter…” 

“Jesus,” Regina muttered after a long moment, letting the accusations sink in. “None of them told us any of that.”

“Ask her. I have no reason to lie. I burned down the great sept, I massacred thousands of people, I’ve hurt innocents, but I do not stand there pretending to be righteous while I do it.”

Regina chuckled humorlessly and took a long sip of wine. “If you’re going to be evil at least have the balls to own it.”

Cersei smiled, sharp and dangerous. “Exactly. You and I are alike in many ways. We were forced to marry against our wills, we were made hateful by circumstances beyond our control.”

“What does this have to do with asking for help to fight the dead?”

A sort of truth rang clear in her green eyes. She was no longer smug, but solemn. “I lost my children. All four of them, three of them were murdered by people considered heroes.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I lost my children,” Cersei said again. “I lost my mother, my father, both of them taken from me by my own brother, I lost… I lost my lover, and now I’m forced to lay with a man I loathe, who I need to close my eyes and picture another when he’s inside me. My crown? My power that I had to claw and scrape to get? It’s all I have left.” She reached out and grasped Regina's hands in her own. “If you would help us in the war against the dead; I would ask for your help in defeating the Dragon Queen and her armies afterwards.”

Regina took a sharp breath. She had gotten to know Daenerys, she was training Sansa. To help their enemy now... “That’s a tall order. Not to mention what’s in it for me?”

“The armies of Westeros at your beck and call when you need us. Lands, titles, gold, whatever you wish. Euron Greyjoy told me there’s magic in this land. Do you possess any?”

“I do. I’m quite powerful, actually.”

“Then you could end this war, you could stop all this bloodshed in a single stroke. Only one needs to die, no more. You could save thousands of lives.” 

“I don’t know about this, Cersei. I need to think about this, talk to the others… We have our own issues to deal with, and Daenerys didn’t ask me to fight for her after the war but-.”

“But after all you’ve heard you doubt me, and she’s been here long enough to gain your friendship and trust. I understand. I’m sure you’ve been placed in the same predicament; when you’re just trying to do the right thing but your past and half true rumors muddy the waters.” Cersei stood, as did Regina. “Just keep in mind I’ve been nothing but honest in the short time you’ve known me, whereas Daenerys has lied since the moment you saw her.”

Without another word the short haired queen turned on her heel and walked out to where the servant was waiting to show her to her room. The moment she was gone Regina summoned the rest of those from the Enchanted Forest back in. After they were all seated Regina told them what Cersei was offering. 

“I mean for all we know Cersei is the hero, it’s just the villains who’ve been painting her in a bad light,” Regina offered with a shrug after she was done. “If half those rumors about Daenerys is true-.”

“It could be half truths though,” Emma argued. “We need to ask Daenerys about this before we make any decisions, but in any case we still have Zelena to worry about, and we haven’t even said we would help fight their zombies.”

“After what Bran said the other day I don’t think there’s any choice,” Snow said. “If we don’t help them, the Night King will come to our realm.”

“I agree with Snow,” added David.

“Now there’s a surprise,” Regina muttered into her glass of wine.

“I vote we go and help them defeat the dead but we stay out of their politics,” Robin added. “It’s confusing and conflicting enough, they don’t need us to be in on it.”

“Guys come on!” Emma argued. “Just because a creepy kid in a wheelchair heard one of Regina’s more famous lines doesn’t mean he’s right about the dead coming here. Okay this doesn’t… I don’t feel right about going there. Why can’t we just work on a way to defeat Zelena then go back home?”

“Mom, you’re the savior,” Henry said, in that big wide eyed urging voice of his. “You need to come with us, they don’t stand a chance without you.”

“That is not true, your Grace. Your birth mother is not the savior who was promised.”

They all turned and saw a tall stunning woman with long bright copper colored hair, and long velvet robes of blood red striding towards them.

“Oh what now!” Emma groaned, flopping down in a chair and rubbing her temples, watching wearily as the red woman approached. A moment later Grumpy ran in, loudly announcing that yet ANOTHER person from Westeros had come to the castle.

“Yeah thanks, we know,” Regina said rather dryly, turning back towards the stranger. “Are you another queen?”

“I am no queen, your Grace. I am just a servant of the Lord of Light. I am Melisandre of Asshai.”

“Wait… wait, they told us about you,” Snow said cautiously. “Davos and Brienne… they said you murdered a king, that you hurt a lot of people.”

“I do as my Lord commands,” Melisandre told them simply. “Nothing more, nothing less. Which is why I’m here now.” She turned towards Regina. “R'hllor has blessed you with the gift of fire. Show me your flames, and I will have you see the truth.”

“No, I’m not showing anyone anything until you explain what you meant about Emma not being the savior. She already proved herself to be the savior.”

“Of your land, perhaps,” Melisandre told them. “She may have broken your little curse, but in the fight between light and dark, she is nothing. Her magic will be useful against the long night but she is not The Princess Who Was Promised. She is just a foot soldier in this war.”

“So… wait, I’m not the savior?” 

“You’re  **_A_ ** savior. Not  **_THE_ ** savior.” She held out her hand to the queen. “Your flames. Please, Your Grace.”

Regina swallowed hard. There was something about this woman that frightened her, that made her want to run as far and as fast away as she could but she would not show fear in front of her son. With a wave of her hand a ball of fire grew in her palm and Melisandre stared into it, the blood red ruby at her throat glowing dangerously. “Lord of Light, cast your light upon us,” the red woman cried out as she stared into the flames. The rest of the torches in the room seemed to dim and the fire in her palm grew brighter. “Lord of Light, defend us! For the night is dark and full of terrors!”

Her fire grew larger, nearly engulfing her and Regina leaned as far back as she could, brown eyes wide and terrified.

“Lord of Light, come to us in our darkness! For the night is dark and full of terrors!” Every other fire in the hall went out in a great blast and Regina whimpered as the flames grew larger, and hotter. 

“Regina!” Robin shouted above the scream of the flames, terrified for the brown eyed woman.

“Show me the way,” Melisandre whispered, low and soft now. “Show me the light. Show me how to defeat the darkness. For the night is dark and full of terrors.”

She saw it. Regina saw it, there, dancing in the flames. Two crowns, one pure white embedded with deep blue sapphires and the other black as pitch with dark purple amethysts crowning two roaring lions. The white crown was above the lion that was as golden and beautiful as the dawn and black one rested on the brow of the other lion, the color of flesh, and surrounded by thick black smoke.

Regina fell backwards, crying out as she shook her hand free of the great flames.

“Soulmates,” Melisandre breathed. “Two sets of soulmates… that is who will destroy the darkness.”

Robin hurried over to her and offered his hand, the sleeve slipping up and showing her his tattoo. 

His flesh colored tattoo surrounded by a black shield.

“Regina?” Robin called to her, his voice a thousand miles away. “M’lady, are you alright?”

Regina swallowed hard as she looked up at him. His eyes were beautiful. A deep dazzling blue, her favorite color, she realized as she gazed into them. Regina allowed him to help her to her feet and when he went to steady her, she grabbed hold of his wrist, running her fingers over the tattoo Tinkerbell showed her a lifetime ago.

“M’lady?” Robin said again, a concern no one except Henry ever spoke to her with. “M’lady, are you-?”

But what he was going to ask she never found out. Because just then, she grabbed hold of his shirt and yanked him towards her, kissing him. 

She ignored the literal cheering of Snow, the awkward humming and hawing of Emma, David asking what on earth was going on, and everything else but the thief who melted into her kiss, burying one hand in her hair and wrapping the other around her body and pulling her closer. The smell of forest, earth and pine and fresh air , was strong and more comforting than anything else she ever smelled before. Even better than her fading memories of Daniel.

The fires from the torches had come back, growing stronger, bathing them with their bright light, and when they finally pulled apart he held her as tight as he could, resting his forehead against hers. 

“Regina...” Robin whispered, and the way his voice sounded, almost pleading… it made her grow weak in the knees. 

“I know,” she breathed. “I know; I’m the evil queen, you’re Robin Hood, I’m a villain, you’re a hero, I-.”

But this time it was her thoughts that were cut off, because he grabbed her face and kissed her again, moaning softly when his tongue brushed against hers. “I don’t care what others bloody call you,” he whispered when they came up for air again. “No one who knows you could possibly think that. If anyone tries to call you that again; they’ll have words with me.”

A pleasant shudder ran through her at the sound of his voice. Strong, protective, willing to fight for her honor. No one has ever done that for her before.

“So…. omay, I’m guessing what you saw in the flames had something to do with that,” Emma said, a deep red blush painting her cheeks. “But you said there were two sets of soulmates.” She glanced around the room. “Who’s the other set of soulmates? Mom? Dad?”

“It was a white crown and a lion. Your symbol is a lion,” Regina reminded David who shook his head. 

“No, whenever we’ve been involved in magic it’s always about us having true love, never being soulmates. Besides I don't think it’ll be two sets of soulmates from the Enchanted Forest, it’ll be one from our group,” he nodded towards the outlaw and the queen, “and one from theirs.”

“He's right,” Melisandre said. “Unity will be the only way to end the Long Night. A crown and a lion from each realm.”

“Then who is it?” Henry asked. “There’s three ‘lions’ from there and two queens.”

“But one of the queens is related to the lions so it can’t be her,” Snow said. “So that leaves Jaime and Daenerys or Tyrion and Daenerys.”

“Well she’s gonna have to figure out which one she likes the best and quick,” Emma sighed, getting up from the chair. “Because we just got pulled into a war it looks like…”

Please Review!


	14. Jaime

“Come in.”

Jaime took a deep breath and squared his shoulders before he walked into the lion's den. Regina had already given the best chambers to Daenerys and Jon along with the Starks and those from the other Great Houses but Cersei’s room was large and comfortable enough that they wouldn’t risk insulting her.

It felt as if it had been years since he saw his sister. A mid afternoon sun was shining through the windows, washing her in a soft glow. 

She was radiant and beautiful, stunning to behind in a gown of crimson velvet and gold, and eyes of bright green wildfire studied him cool and unblinking.

It had been nearly a month since they left Winterfell, and it had taken him three weeks to reach Winterfell from King's Landing. She always showed early, by any accord her belly should be swollen with child, yet it was as flat as the broadside of a sword and when he dropped his gaze to her stomach she put a dainty hand overtop it.

“The baby?” 

They were the first words he spoke since she nearly killed him. Cersei just shook her head and Jaime felt tears well in his eyes. 

His son. His boy, the one Cersei promised he would be named a father to was gone, hopes and dreams washed away in a tide of blood. He took her in his arms, kissing the top of her head as he rocked his twin back and forth. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Cersei, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have been there.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” she muttered against his chest. “I did nothing wrong.”

He stroked her short golden hair. “I know you didn’t. These things, they just happen. No one can control it.”

She shook her head and pulled away, gazing up at her brother. “I was poisoned. Our son, he was murdered just as Joffrey and Myrcella were. They took our little boy away from us.”

He thought of the Dornish snakes rotting in the dungeon. Maybe they had supporters still. “Who?”

“Tyrion.” His arms dropped from around her. Jaime made to step away from her but she clutched at his tunic. “He poisoned me, Jaime, he killed your son. The girl, Sansa, she gave some queer northern poison to her beast to give to Tyrion and he dropped it in my wine.”

“No.” There was no argument, no doubt, no nothing but harsh steel. “Brienne wouldn’t do that. Tyrion wouldn’t do that.”

“They would. Tyrion wanted to weaken my claim to the throne and take away my prince, while Sansa wanted to take our child from us for crimes she feels I committed.” 

“And Brienne?”

“She loves you. She told me at much during Joffrey's wedding.” His heart fluttered in his chest and he fought with tooth and nail not to burst at the news. “She wanted to take you away from me by killing our son.”

“She wouldn’t harm an innocent, Cersei, much less my child.”

She scoffed at the knight. “No? Then how come she was too fearful to show her face when I arrived? Speaking of who was that little whore I saw you with?”

“She was no one, a local from this realm. And Brienne is… she’s on a quest,” he settled on. If he could keep Cersei from targeting Brienne when she couldn’t defend herself he would consider this whole excursion a success. “But she’ll be back.”

“When?”

A sad smile tugged at his lips. “Soon I hope. But when she returns, she will tell you the same thing I’m telling you now, she didn’t harm your baby. No one else even knew you were pregnant.” Jaime took hold of her sister’s hands. “No one poisoned you, these things happen. It’s no one's fault.”

Cersei snatched her hands from his grasp “They took our son from us, and you would defend his murderers. Have you lost your manhood along with a hand?”

“No one took him from us, you’re being paranoid.”

The sharp sting of her palm against his cheek echoed in her room. He rubbed away the reddening handprint. “I missed you too, sweet sister.”

She began to weep, turning on a dime so fast it gave him pause as she fell to her knees. “Jaime, my son. My son, he’s gone, and they are responsible! Please!”

“It was no one's fault, Cersei. I know you’re looking for someone to blame, but you weren’t poisoned.”

“Please,” she breathed, hands coming up to fumble at his belt. “Please, Jaime, our son. They killed our son, you have to do what needs to be done.”

Before he could stop him she reached into his breeches and pulled out his cock. His hand took hold of hers, willing himself not to grow.

“Cersei, no.”

“Jaime, our son… our son,” she breathed, her breath warm on his flesh. He felt his cock stirring and he turned away, ashamed. He had Brienne now, even if she had changed. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want  **_her_ ** . 

“Cersei, stop, please,” he begged. She ignored him, pressed a kiss to the tip, and the door opened.

Emma walked in the room, bold as brass. “Hey, just wanted you guys to know supper will- OH MY GOD!”

Jaime stumbled away from his sister, shoving himself back in his breeches. Cersei just raised a brow at the shocked blonde.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” Emma screamed, looking from Jaime to Cersei and back again. 

“Don’t you know how to knock?!” Jaime yelled as Cersei stood from the ground, smoothing out her dress.

“Excuse me for not realizing I would be opening the door to Alabama!” She ran a trembling hand through her hair. “Oh my god, oh my- I - I need to go,” she said aloud to herself. “I need to go, I need to leave, I have to leave. You- I have to leave.”

“Stop her,” Cersei said, any tenderness or weeping silenced in the blink of an eye once she had hurried out. Jaime ran after the savior, catching up to her well down the hall and grabbing her by the arm.

“Don't touch me,” Emma spat, disgusted, wrenching out of his grasp. “You-... that’s your SISTER!”

“Keep your voice down,” he warned her. The last thing he needed was for someone to report to Brienne that he had been unfaithful. He spotted an empty room and dragged her into it, shutting the door behind them.”

“You are  **_fucking_ ** your  **_sister_ ** !” she hissed when they were alone. “Do you realize how messed up that is?”

“I wasn’t-... We’re not together anymore.”

“ANYMORE?!”

“Yes, anymore!” he barked. Jaime sighed and sat himself down on the straw filled mattress. “We were young. Thirteen or so, I don’t-... I don’t remember the first few times,” he muttered. “I loved her and I thought she loved me.” Emma looked utterly repulsed and Jaime glared. “Think what you want, Swan, say what you want, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what others think of me, or us.”

“Including Brienne?”

“She already knows.”

Her disgust faded to shock. “She knows and she… she still-?”

“Loves me? Yes.” A smile tugged at Jaime’s lips. “She knows all my sins and still loves me. She sees the best in me, she sees the kind of man I always wanted to be, not the one I was.”

“This is insane.” She ran her hand through her hair. “This is absolutely insane.”

“It’s not. When you love someone, you look past their faults, you look past their past. Your pirate sailed with Euron Greyjoy so I know he has more than a few bodies and women under his belt. Yet you love him. You don’t judge him for who he was.”

“That’s different, he wasn’t sleeping with his sister.”

“We don’t get to choose who we love. I didn’t choose Cersei and I didn’t choose Brienne, it just… happened.”

Emma’s face fell. She sighed and sank into the chair. “Like soulmates.”

Jaime smiled, thinking of the way him and Brienne fought back to back in the North, how they knew instinctively when the other was in danger. “Exactly. Like soulmates. What?” he asked when he saw her rub her temples. “What happened?”

“What happened is your girlfriend is gonna get her heart broken.”

“Brienne? Why, I told you she knows. I asked Cersei to stop, she didn’t. I didn’t engage or encourage it.”

“No, that’s not-... Just after you guys left, another person from Westeros shows up, someone they call the Red Woman.” 

“Stannis’ priests, the one who killed Renly.”

“I don’t know about all that but she had a vision in the flames of two crowns and two lions. Two sets of soul mates. We already found one and… it looks like I just found the other pair.”

Jaime’s face fell. His jaw dropped and his eyes went shock. “I’m… Cersei is my soulmate?”

“You guys are twins right? And,” she shuddered. “Lovers? It makes perfect sense.”

He swallowed hard and turned his gaze to the floor. He didn’t want Cersei to be his soulmate. At one point, for a long while, that was all he wanted but now… He didn’t want to be cruel. He didn’t want to be angry or mean, he didn’t want to be ruthless, he didn’t want to hit the ones he loved or go to them for sex only when he required something. He wanted to be good. He wanted to be honorable. 

He wanted to be like Brienne.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, voice softening when she saw the tears in his eyes. “But if you being Cersei’s soulmate will save your country…”

“No I- I know, I just… are you sure it was a lion and a crown? Nothing else?”

“That’s what Regina and the red woman said they saw.” 

Jaime simply nodded. He sat there in silence for a good long while before he looked up at her. “Don't tell Brienne.”

“She’s going to find out eventually.”

“I know but right now with the guilt of what she did and everything else, I just-... this’ll crush her. Please, just give me a little while to figure out what to say to her.l, at least until she’s back to normal.”

Emma agreed she wouldn’t tell either about the prophecy or what she saw in Cersei’s chambers. After Jaime thanked her he headed not back to Cersei but to Brienne's chambers, walking in just in time to see the tip of Oathkeeper fall to the ground as she struggled to hold it upright.

“It’s too heavy,” she admitted, frowning as she fought to pick it up. “I can’t even lift it anymore.”

Jaime walked over and took the sword from her, putting it back in its handsome scabbard. “You will again,” he promised, taking her in his arms and kissing her atop her head.

“I feel horrible,” she muttered, resting her head against his chest. “Every cruel thought that comes into my head should make me feel wretched, and instead I just feel guilty for not feeling anything.”

“At least you understand you should feel bad rather than just allow yourself to run rampant with it. That's the important thing. You’ll be back to your old self soon.”

Tears flooded her eyes at the promise. “What if I’m not? What if I’m this hateful vile person for the rest of my life? All I wanted to be beautiful, it’s not fair. Every other Highborn woman gets to be.”

“You’ve obviously never seen Selyse Baratheon. But Brienne, that doesn’t matter, none of that matters. You’re unlike any other woman I’ve ever met, looks included. That’s why I fell in love with you.”

“You fell in love with me in spite of my looks, not because of them,” she said miserably.

“Is that so terrible? That it was your heart and soul that made me weak for you rather than your face? And in case you’ve forgotten it’s not like I had you from behind with the candles out.” Her face went red with blush and Jaime found himself smiling. At least her ability to blush was still the same. “Plus your muscles, your hips, your breasts, your lips, your legs, Gods, woman, your eyes… I’m drawn to all of that. I’ve fantasized about all of that.”

A shy smile tugged at her lips as she gazed downward. Jaime put his finger under her chin and lifted it up so she was looking at him. “I love you. I love the  **_real_ ** you. More than words can say.”

Tears gathered in her grey eyes. She draped her arms around his neck. “Am I still allowed to kiss you?” she asked in a small timid whisper. 

“I don’t care what you look like, you never have to ask that.” 

She chuckled lightly before she drew his face to hers, pressing her lips against his. New looks and thinner lips couldn’t give her new skills. She was still unsure and unseasoned when they kissed, but just like last night Jaime didn’t care. It was slow and tender, and best of all she asked for nothing in return but his lips against hers. He wrapped her in his arms and stroked her long blonde hair. He fought against his tears as he swayed her side to side. 

This felt so right. Being with Brienne felt right, it felt healthy, it felt good. How could they not be soulmates? He wanted to be her honorable knight, not Cersei’s Kingslayer. Brienne helped him realize he didn’t have to be just his twin's other half and now the universe was saying that none of that mattered? That some predestined prophecy decided Cersei was his soulmate instead? It wasn’t fair.

“Jaime?”

He looked down at Brienne who was gazing up at him. “You’re crying. Are you okay?”

He forced a smile to his lips and blinked the wetness in away. Cersei never would have inquired as to if he was okay or not. “I’m fine,” he lied, kissing her again. “I just… I love you, Brienne. So much.” He kissed her again and again, deepening it with every passing moment until she was moaning and clutching at his tunic. “So, so much.”

As the two knights tumbled into bed and he buried his face into her now shorter neck, missing the long scars the bear gave that he traced long and well with his tongue the other night, Jaime did what he never once had to do the night before.

He closed his eyes, and pictured someone else. Someone much taller, with stunning sapphire eyes...


	15. Daenerys

“So there’s no slaves? Anywhere at all?”

“No! It’s illegal worldwide! I- I mean there’s illegal slavery and people who are forced to work off their debts to society but it is illegal to buy and sell humans as if they were property! The country these people hail from, America, they fought a war against itself to end the practice.”

“Seems the masters in that country are as stubborn as they were in Essos.” Daenerys took a sip of wine, her lips curling into a smirk as she remembered the flames burning the great ships of the Masters, of her Unsullied slaughtering the ones who held them in chains. 

“It’s still not as good for the descendants of these slaves as it should be but one of them was even chosen to rule their country.”

“These people choose their own king?”

Missandei nodded, her grin beaming brighter every moment. “Yes! Rich or poor, they have a chance to vote for who leads them! And there’s these great institutions of learning like your Citadel, where men or women are able to go and learn whatever their hearts desire! There’s even whole programs dedicated to the study of languages!”

Daenerys smiled at her friend. “It sounds as if you’re quite taken with this new land. Almost as if you’d like to be there instead of Westeros.”

Missandei’s big brown eyes went wide with fear. “I- I would never-... I am loyal to you, Your Grace,” she stammered out. “Always.”

The queen chuckled and took her hand in hers. “I do not ask for your unyielding loyalty. Only for your honesty. I’ve told you before, if you want to go to Naath tomorrow I would buy you a ship and send you home with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. If you would like to go to this new land; I would be honored to send you on your way with these people once they figure out a way home.”

Missandei bowed her head, a blush creeping up on her cheeks. “I-... I would see you on the Iron Throne, Your Grace. I would see you ruling and liberating those who need liberating. But… Greyworm, he… we were talking about what comes after, and I-... We- we talked. About going home. Back to Naath, after you have won the war. But if… if there’s a new land, free of slavery, where I could advance my learning, where we could live without fear of being put back into chains...”

She laid a hand on her lady’s cheek, stroking the smooth soft skin. Daenerys bit back her tears and forced a smile to her painted lips. “Then you must go there. And you would go there with my full blessing.”

Missandei burst into a bright smile and threw her arms around the queen, offering thanks upon thanks upon thanks. Daenerys quickly wiped away the wetness from her violet eyes, not wanting her friend to see her sorrow. She wanted Missandei happy and free to make her own choices. That was why she freed her in the first place, so she could make her own decisions. 

She just never thought those decisions would take her away.

A knock at the door interrupted their musings , and Missandei untangled them to go and answer, back stiffening considerably when she saw the red headed wolf in the entranceway. “Lady Stark,” she greeted her sharply. Daenerys told her about the argument on the balcony and the former slaves opinion had gone from sour to straight out loathing.

“Missandei,” Sansa greeted her cordially. “Might I speak to the Queen alone?”

“No.”

A smile rose to her lips. “It is alright, Missandei. Allow her in.”

“As you say, Your Grace.” She could hear the bitterness in her voice. Daenerys watched Sansa walk in and clasped her hands behind her back. Her pale beautiful face was as cold and impassive as ever, a perfect winter beauty made of untouched ice and snow.

“I’ll be just outside, Your Grace,” Missandei said, eyeing the wolf before she left, shutting the door behind her.

An empty chair stood before her, and she knew long ingrained manners would not allow Sansa, ever the Lady, to take a seat without permission. 

So, with what she said last night fresh in mind, Daenerys did not grant it.

 _You are a queen,_ Daenerys reminded herself as the two women stared at one another. _Not just a dragon._

“I am sorry for your sworn shields… predicament,” she began with. “I know how much you value her loyalty.”

“Thank you,” said Sansa. “Hopefully they can figure out a way to change her back but I understand the reasoning behind her decisions. Brienne has been scorned and mocked and treated cruelly her whole life because of her looks when people should be judging her by her heart. It just got too much for her.”

“Brienne is a good woman,” Daenerys agreed. “One of the best fighters with one of the kindest spirits I’ve ever met. But I’m sure you did not come here just to talk about the Evenstar's daughter.”

“No. I came for another reason entirely, actually.” Sansa quickly lowered her gaze, not speaking for a good long while. Daenerys raised a manicured brow.

“Lady Stark?”

“My father always said never say an apology until you can work up the courage to look the man you've wronged in the eye,” Sansa muttered. “Much more difficult in practice then in spirit.” She took a deep breath and finally lifted her head, staring her right in the eye. “I am sorry, Your Grace, for what I said the other night. It was cruel, and thoughtless. Even if I didn’t know about your son, I still should have never insinuated that you’ve never had to make sacrifices in this war.”

Daenerys finally offered her the chair in front of her and Sansa took it. “Thank you. I appreciate the apology. And I apologize as well for my actions. I have been a bit… testy, as it concerns the North.”

“We both have,” said Sansa. “I do not trust you. I cannot trust anyone outside of my blood and Brienne, and you deserve to know why.” 

She gnawed at her lip before she stood, undoing her outer dress and leaving her in nothing but her small clothes. She faced the wall and lowered the straps of her silk garments and Daenerys gasped as she exposed her back to her.

From the bottom of her neck to the top of her ass was ugly map of raised scars from a whip, long jagged cuts long since healed into white scars that marred her skin, and a pattern of burns that formed an obscene ‘B’ on her skin. The sight of her mutilated back raised bile in the queen's throat and her hand curled into a fist. 

“Who did this?” the dragon snarled. It did not matter if this woman was her enemy, no one deserved that. If the culprit was alive she would have him burned alive.

“My second husband, Ramsey Bolton,” Sansa answered, finally covering up the scars again. “A man who was supposed to protect me sold me to him after he saved me from the Lannisters. Another family who promised to protect me, who promised to give my father mercy and instead abused me and murdered my father in front of me.”

“Is he still alive?”

Sansa smirked as she redid the strings holding her gown closed. “No. The dogs of Winterfell took care of that.”

Daenerys lifted her glass of wine. “To the dogs of Winterfell.” 

The redhead chuckled and nodded her head. “To the dogs of Winterfell. But… you can see why it is hard to trust people. I grew up with the best liars in the world, who would smile to your face while hiding the knife meant to stab you in the back behind theirs. No one but Brienne and my family has ever had my best intentions at heart without wanting something from me, it seems.” 

Daenerys nodded. “I know. And I am sorry for what you’ve been through, Lady Stark. People care only about getting ahead in this country, they only see it as some great game that needs to be played.” She poured Sansa a cup of wine. “I do not want to play the game. I’m not good at it. Lies and deceits, scheming and plotting, fake smiles and false friendships… It’s not what leading should be. But that is what is being asked of me. I wanted to break the wheel. Not become a spoke in it.”

Sansa pursed her lips at the queen. “Have you ever considered Westeros doesn’t have a wheel that needs to be broken?” Daenerys lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Your kind of justice isn’t needed here. Freeing slaves, conquering cities, bend the knee or burn alive, good and bad, yes and no. It’s all black and white, right or wrong, no games, no plots, no false friends and fake smiles. That won’t work here.”

The dragon took a sip of wine, not taking her eyes off the wolf. “An odd thing for the daughter of Ned Stark to say.”

“Perhaps if my father and brother had been told that then they might still be alive,” said Sansa with a shrug. “Robert was a cruel man, but he was a good king. He left the realm alone, allowed the schemers to rule and the country knew mostly peace for 17 years. That’s the kind of ruler Westeros needs. But that is not what Essos needs. Slavery, Dothraki hoardes, a thousand different city states, people who would mutilate young boys to make soldiers… there is a black or white choice with them. They need harsh rules and definitive leadership, not plots and schemes and flowery words.”

Daenerys felt tears welling in her eyes that she forced herself to blink away. She missed it. She missed Essos, she missed the reverence, the missed being Mysha, she missed striking chains off of the oppressed. She had a purpose there. She was Mysha there, she was a God there, she was loved there. What was she to the Westerosi? Another Targaryen? The 17th in line? No one would adore her here. No one needed her here. She wasn’t even their rightful Queen, that title belonged to Jon. Daenerys was nothing to the countrymen she was fighting so hard to rule. 

She sniffed and wiped the wetness from her eyes. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to scheme and plot, but what can I do?”

Sansa leaned forward, taking Daenerys’ hands in her own. “You can win the throne.”

“But I thought you didn’t want me here?”

“I didn’t want Jon to give away the North without even so much as a consultation. But you win the throne from Cersei and then you choose your successor. Tyrion, one of your men, whoever you feel is best suited to ruling and let them be king. Then you fly back to Essos and you conquer as Aegon the First did. You conquer and rule those who will not bend with an iron fist.” 

It sounded good. It sounded so good. The thought made Daenerys almost drunk on want. But Sansa was a politician. As good a one as she had ever met. She wouldn’t be giving free advice for nothing in return. “What does the North get out of me sitting on the throne?”

“As thanks for your army helping with the dead, the North will help you destroy Cersei Lannister. They will help you win the throne as allies rather than subjects.”

Daenerys thought it over for a moment. She would be losing half of her country, but gaining allies. Aegon allowed Torren Stark to bend the knee to avoid bloodshed. Perhaps now it was up to Daenerys to allow them to rise again for the same reason.

“If the North helps me in my war I will grant them independence. No one should be ruled by those they don’t wish to be.”

She fought to remain stoic instead of beaming and she had to gnaw at her lip to keep from grinning. The two women stood, Sansa stuck out her hand, and Daenerys promptly took it.

“The North is now, and will forever remain, an independent kingdom,” the queen declared. “We will destroy the dead and the Lannisters as allies and trade partners.”

“And the North will be honored to fight alongside you, your Grace,” Sansa said with a curt nod. 

There was another knock and when Daenerys called for the person to enter a servant walked in with an announcement that dinner was being served. The two women walked out side by side, heads held tall. When Missandei glared at Sansa, Daenerys just told her friend that they have made amends, and to treat the Stark woman with as much respect as she would any other monarch.

When they reached the dining area she felt Sansa freeze besides her as she spotted Cersei sitting besides Regina. Jaime was sitting beside his twin and across from Brienne who was looking down at her plate, not making a sound for fear of revealing herself to the lion queen. The rest of the table, now much more crowded then it had been in the days past, was full of Westerosi, Essoians and those native to Misthaven. 

When Daenerys and Sansa walked in the table stood, all but those who supported Cersei and the short haired monarch herself. Daenerys sat between Drogon and Greyworm while Sansa sat between Podrick and Jon, glancing at Brienne who was giving her a sorrowful apologetic look that she couldn’t protect her when she was faced with the woman she once swore to save her from. Cersei caught the look and narrowed her eyes at the formerly tall blonde who immediately turned her sight to her plate again, cheeks burning a bright flush.

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Cersei said to Brienne with a smile as false as fools gold. “You are?”

Jaime looked as though he might be sick. Brienne opened her mouth and closed it, looking from Sansa to Jaime for help.

“She’s a mute.” They all turned towards Regina at the head of the table. “She’s a mute,” said Regina again, plopping a bit of bread into her mouth. “One of my serving girls I’ve taken pity on, she never learned to write either. It’s useless to try to hold a conversation with her, the poor thing.”

The look of gratitude Brienne gave the dark haired queen could not be understated. Cersei didn’t look like she believed Regina much but with no argument she let it drop.

For now.

The dinner was cordial and cold, and so thick you could cut the tension with a dull knife. About halfway though Qyburn walked in, deep in a spirited conversation with a man the Misthaven called Frankenstein. They explained that his title of doctor was similar to that of maester. 

“Good evening,” the old man greeted the table cordially with a friendly smile. Daenerys saw Brienne shift uncomfortably at his entrance and blushed a sharp crimson, saying nothing. The Maester took a seat besides Cersei and turned his attention to Regina. “Apologizes your Grace. But your Doctor was just telling me about this interesting bit of magic you have in this realm.” Sansa quirked up, looking from Qyburn to Regina, icy blue eyes excited and eager. “Something about a collection of hearts?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I can rip out someone’s heart.”

The excitement on Qyburn’s face was enough to light the room a flame. “Really? How extraordinary. And you can bring the dead back to life?”

“Well I mean Dr. Whale can but I mainly use it to control people. Or kill them, whichever one suits me best.” 

“You can control people?” Sansa whispered. “You could control anybody?”

Regina looked towards Sansa and smiled at the young girl. “ _Anybody_.” 

“Could you use this magic on the night king?” Jon asked from his seat, missing the look of excitement and want on his sister's face. “If we get you close enough, could you… rip out his heart?”

Regina shrugged before she turned towards David and Snow. “Get him to touch squid ink, freeze him, crush his heart? It could work. We forget about the soulmate prophecy?” 

“Soulmate prophecy?” asked Daenerys, glancing between the locals. “What’s what?”

“A woman from your country came today, said her name was Melisandre of Asshai,” Snow answered. Brienne's hand curled into a fist and a look of rage clouded her new beautiful features. “Said it would take two sets of soulmates to take out the queen. We already figured one out.” She turned towards Regina snd miked and the dark haired queen blushed slightly, but no amount of flowering could hide the small smile forming on her painted lips. “Then the other is someone from your group.”

“Mom, don’t,” Emma warned, but the Princess took no need of her daughter's words.

“A crowned lion,” Snow continued, looking at Daenerys, missing that everyone else was looking at Cersei and the one handed man sitting beside her. “So it’s someone associated with a crown, and a lion. Those are the two soulmates.”

Brienne’s lip trembled as she looked at a heartbroken Jaime who only had eyes for her, screaming a silent apology as Cersei smirked, lifting a glass of wine to her lips.

“Well,” she sneered, looking around the stunned table, cruel and hateful eyes landing on the formerly tall blonde, “guess all you hypocrites have some apologies to make for judging us.”

“Oh no,” Snow laughed, the only one not to sense what was happening. “No I’m pretty sure it meant romantic soulmates, not brother and sister.”

No one joined in her laughter. Emma leaned over and whispered someone in her mother’s ears and the Princess face fell, first looking on in shock, and then disgust. 

“Oh I’m gonna be sick,” Hook grumbled out loud, but no one was paying any attention to him. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaime whispered, words meant only for the lady knight who stood up from her chair without a word. She turned on her heel and walked as quickly as she could out of the hall, wiping the tears from her eyes. Jaime got up to follow but Cersei reached out and took hold of his wrist, yanking him painfully back to her.

“No one walks away from me,” she warned him in a low deadly voice. Her lips curled into a sneer. “ _Soulmate_.”

Jaime yanked his hand from her grasp and stormed out of the hall, running to catch up to Brienne.


End file.
